B    3    flbS 


A 

A—& 


FW'TI 


BERKELEY 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

UNDERGRAD. 
LIBRARY 


ANN  VERONICA 

A  MODERN  LOVE  STORY 


BY 
H.    G.    WELLS 

AUTHOR  OF 
TONO  -  BUNGAY,  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 


BOOKS  BY 
H.    G.    WE  LLS 

THE  FUTURE  IN  AMERICA.    Ill'd.     8vo.     net  $2.00 

ANTICIPATIONS.     Post  8vo net     1.80 

THE  WAR  OP  THE  WORLDS.     Post  8vo.     .     .     1.50 

THE  INVISIBLE  MAN.     Post  8vo i.oo 

THIRTY  STRANGE  STORIES.     Post  8vo  .     .     .     1.50 
WHEN  THE  SLEEPER  WAKES.    Ill'd.  Post  8vo.     1.50 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  N.  Y. 


Copyright,  1909,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  October,  1909. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  ANN  VERONICA  TALKS  TO  HER  FATHER      ...  i 

II.  ANN  VERONICA  GATHERS  POINTS  OF  VIEW  ...  34 

III.  THE  MORNING  OF  THE  CRISIS 54 

IV.  THE  CRISIS 86 

V.  THE  FLIGHT  TO  LONDON 95 

VI.  EXPOSTULATIONS 117 

VII.  IDEALS  AND  A  REALITY      .          136 

VIII.  BIOLOGY 167 

IX.  DISCORDS 196 

X.  THE  SUFFRAGETTES 234 

XI.  THOUGHTS  IN  PRISON 256 

XII.  ANN  VERONICA  PUTS  THINGS  IN  ORDER      .     .     .  268 

XIII.  THE   SAPPHIRE  RING 285 

XIV.  THE  COLLAPSE  OF  THE  PENITENT 308 

XV.  THE  LAST  DAYS  AT  HOME 329 

XVI.  IN  THE  MOUNTAINS 342 

XVII.  IN  PERSPECTIVE 365 


ANN    VERONICA 


ANN  VERONICA 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 

\ 

ANN  VERONICA  TALKS  TO  HER  FATHER 
§  I 

ONE  Wednesday  afternoon  in  late  September,  Ann 
Veronica  Stanley  came  down  from  London  in  a 
state  of  solemn  excitement  and  quite  resolved  to  have 
things  out  with  her  father  that  very  evening.  She  had 
trembled  on  the  verge  of  such  a  resolution  before,  but 
this  time  quite  definitely  she  made  it.  A  crisis  had 
been  reached,  and  she  was  almost  glad  it  had  been 
reached.  She  made  up  her  mind  in  the  train  home  that 
it  should  be  a  decisive  crisis.  It  is  for  that  reason  that 
this  novel  begins  with  her  there,  and  neither  earlier  nor 
later,  for  it  is  the  history  of  this  crisis  and  its  conse- 
quences that  this  novel  has  to  tell. 

She  had  a  compartment  to  herself  in  the  train  from 
London  to  Morningside  Park,  and  she  sat  with  both  her 
feet  on  the  seat  in  an  attitude  that  would  certainly  have 
distressed  her  mother  to  see,  and  horrified  her  grand- 
mother beyond  measure;  she  sat  with  her  knees  up  to 
her  chin  and  her  hands  clasped  before  them,  and  she 


ANN    VERONICA 

was  so  lost  in  thought  that  she  discovered  with  a  start, 
from  a  lettered  lamp,  that  she  was  at  Morningside  Park, 
and  thought  she  was  moving  out  of  the  station,  whereas 
she  was  only  moving  in.  "  Lord !"  she  said.  She  jumped 
up  at  once,  caught  up  a  leather  clutch  containing  note- 
books, a  fat  text-book,  and  a  chocolate-and-yellow-cov- 
ered  pamphlet,  and  leaped  neatly  from  the  carriage, 
only  to  discover  that  the  train  was  slowing  down  and 
that  she  had  to  traverse  the  full  length  of  the  platform 
past  it  again  as  the  result  of  her  precipitation.  "Sold 
again,"  she  remarked.  "Idiot!"  She  raged  inwardly, 
while  she  walked  along  with  that  air  of  self-contained 
serenity  that  is  proper  to  a  young  lady  of  nearly  two- 
and- twenty  under  the  eye  of  the  world. 

She  walked  down  the  station  approach,  past  the  neat, 
obtrusive  offices  of  the  coal  merchant  and  the  house 
agent,  and  so  to  the  wicket-gate  by  the  butcher's  shop 
that  led  to  the  field  path  to  her  home.  Outside  the 
post-office  stood  a  no-hatted,  blond  young  man  in  gray 
flannels,  who  was  elaborately  affixing  a  stamp  to  a  let- 
ter. At  the  sight  of  her  he  became  rigid  and  a  singularly 
bright  shade  of  pink.  She  made  herself  serenely  un- 
aware of  his  existence,  though  it  may  be  it  was  his 
presence  that  sent  her  by  the  field  detour  instead  of  by 
the  direct  path  up  the  Avenue. 

"Umph!"  he  said,  and  regarded  his  letter  doubtfully 
before  consigning  it  to  the  pillar-box.  "Here  goes,"  he 
said.  Then  he  hovered  undecidedly  for  some  seconds 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  his  mouth  puckered  to 
a  whistle  before  he  turned  to  go  home  by  the  Avenue. 

Ann  Veronica  forgot  him  as  soon  as  she  was  through 
the  gate,  and  her  face  resumed  its  expression  of  stern 

2 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

preoccupation.  "It's  either  now  or  never,"  she  said  to 
herself.  .  .  . 

Morningside  Park  was  a  suburb  that  had  not  alto- 
gether, as  people  say,  come  off.  It  consisted,  like  pre- 
Roman  Gaul;  of  three  parts.  There  was  first  the  Avenue, 
which  ran  in  a  consciously  elegant  curve  from  the  rail- 
way station  into  an  undeveloped  wilderness  of  agricult- 
ure, with  big,  yellow  brick  villas  on  either  side,  and  then 
there  was  the  Pavement,  the  little  clump  of  shops  about 
the  post-office,  and  under  the  railway  arch  was  a  con- 
gestion of  workmen's  dwellings.  The  road  from  Sur- 
biton  and  Epsom  ran  under  the  arch,  and,  like  a  bright 
fungoid  growth  in  the  ditch,  there  was  now  appearing 
a  sort  of  fourth  estate  of  little  red-and-white  rough-cast 
villas,  with  meretricious  gables  and  very  brassy  window- 
blinds.  Behind  the  Avenue  was  a  little  hill,  and  an 
iron-fenced  path  went  over  the  crest  of  this  to  a  stile 
under  an  elm-tree,  and  forked  there,  with  one  branch 
going  back  into  the  Avenue  again. 

"It's  either  now  or  never,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  again 
ascending  this  stile.  "  Much  as  I  hate  rows,  I've  either 
got  to  make  a  stand  or  give  in  altogether." 

She  seated  herself  in  a  loose  and  easy  attitude  and 
surveyed  the  backs  of  the  Avenue  houses;  then  her  eyes 
wandered  to  where  the  new  red-and-white  villas  peeped 
among  the  trees.  She  seemed  to  be  making  some  sort  of 
inventory.  "Ye  Gods!"  she  said  at  last.  "  What  a 
place ! 

"  Stuffy  isn't  the  word  for  it. 

"  I  wonder  what  he  takes  me  for?" 

When  presently  she  got  down  from  the  stile  a  certain 
note  of  internal  conflict,  a  touch  of  doubt,  had  gone 

3 


ANN    VERONICA 

from  her  warm-tinted  face.  She  had  now  the  clear  and 
tranquil  expression  of  one  whose  mind  is  made  up. 
Her  back  had  stiffened,  and  her  hazel  eyes  looked  stead- 
fastly ahead. 

As  she  approached  the  corner  of  the  Avenue  the  blond, 
no-hatted  man  in  gray  flannels  appeared.  There  was  a 
certain  air  of  forced  fortuity  in  his  manner.  He  saluted 
awkwardly.  "Hello,  Vee!"  he  said. 

"Hello,  Teddy!"  she  answered. 

He  hung  vaguely  for  a  moment  as  she  passed. 

But  it  was  clear  she  was  in  no  mood  for  Teddys. 
He  realized  that  he  was  committed  to  the  path  across 
the  fields,  an  uninteresting  walk  at  the  best  of  times. 

"Oh,  dammit!"  he  remarked,  "dammit!"  with  great 
bitterness  as  he  faced  it. 

§  2 

Ann  Veronica  Stanley  was  twenty-one  and  a  half 
years  old.  She  had  black  hair,  fine  eyebrows,  and 
a  clear  complexion ;  and  the  forces  that  had  modelled  her 
features  had  loved  and  lingered  at  their  work  and  made 
them  subtle  and  fine.  She  was  slender,  and  sometimes 
she  seemed  tall,  and  walked  and  carried  herself  lightly 
and  joyfully  as  one  who  commonly  and  habitually  feels 
well,  and  sometimes  she  stooped  a  little  and  was  pre- 
occupied. Her  lips  came  together  with  an  expression 
between  contentment  and  the  faintest  shadow  of  a 
smile, (her  manner  was  one  of  quiet  reserve,  and  behind 
this  mask  she  was  wildly  discontented  and  eager  for 
freedom  and  life. 

She  wanted  to  live.  She  was  vehemently  impatient — 

4 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

she  did  not  clearly  know  for  what — to  do,  to  be,  to  ex- 
perience. And  experience  was  slow  in  coming.  All 
the  world  about  her  seemed  to  be — how  can  one  put  it? 
— in  wrappers,  like  a  house  when  people  leave  it  in  the 
summer.  The  blinds  were  all  drawn,  the  sunlight  kept 
out,  one  could  not  tell  what  colors  these  gray  swathings 
hid.  She  wanted  to  know.  And  there  was  no  intima- 
tion whatever  that  the  blinds  would  ever  go  up  or  the 
windows  or  doors  be  opened,  or  the  chandeliers,  that 
seemed  to  promise  such  a  blaze  of  fire,  unveiled  and 
furnished  and  lit.  Dim  souls  flitted  about  her,  not  only 
speaking  but  it  would  seem  even  thinking  in  under- 
tones. . 

During  her  school  days,  especially  her  earlier  school 
days,  the  world  had  been  very  explicit  with  her, 
telling  her  what  to  do,  what  not  to  do,  giving  her 
lessons  to  learn  and  games  to  play  and  interests  of 
the  most  suitable  and  various  kinds.  Presently  she 
woke  up  to  the  fact  that  there  was  a  considerable  group 
of  interests  called  being  in  love  and  getting  married, 
with  certain  attractive  and  amusing  subsidiary  develop- 
ments,  such  as  flirtation  and  "being  interested"  in 
people  of  the  opposite  sex.  She  approached  this  field 
with  her  usual  liveliness  of  apprehension.  But  here  she 
met  with  a  check.  These  interests  her  world  promptly, 
through  the  agency  of  schoolmistresses,  older  school- 
mates, her  aunt,  and  a  number  of  other  responsible  and 
authoritative  people,  assured  her  she  must  on  no  account 
think  about.  Miss  Moffatt,  the  history  and  moral 
instruction  mistress,  was  particularly  explicit  upon  this 
score,  and  they  all  agreed  in  indicating  contempt  and 
pity  for  girls  whose  minds  ran  on  such  matters,  and  who 

5 


ANN    VERONICA 

betrayed  it  in  their  conversation  or  dress  or  bearing. 
It  was,  in  fact,  a  group  of  interests  quite  unlike  any  other 
group,  peculiar  and  special,  and  one  to  be  thoroughly 
ashamed  of.  Nevertheless,  Ann  Veronica  found  it  a 
difficult  matter  not  to  think  of  these  things.  However, 
having  a  considerable  amount  of  pride,  she  decided  she 
would  disavow  these  undesirable  topics  and  keep  her 
mind  away  from  them  just  as  far  as  she  could,  but  it 
left  her  at  the  end  of  her  school  days  with  that  wrapped 
feeling  I  have  described,  and  rather  at  loose  ends. 

The  world,  she  discovered,  with  these  matters  barred, 
had  no  particular  place  for  her  at  all,  nothing  for  her 
to  do,  except  a  functionless  existence  varied  by  calls, 
tennis x  selected  novels,  walks,  and  dusting  in  her  father's 
house. }  She  thought  study  would  be  better.  She  was  a 
clever  girl,  the  best  of  her  year  in  the  High  School,  and 
she  made  a  valiant  fight  for  Somerville  or  Newnham, 
but  her  father  had  met  and  argued  with  a  Somerville 
girl  at  a  friend's  dinner-table  and  he  thought  that  sort 
of  thing  unsexed  a  woman.  He  said  simply  that  he 
wanted  her  to  live  at  home.  There  was  a  certain  amount 
of  disputation,  and  meanwhile  she  went  on  at  school. 
They  compromised  at  length  on  the  science  course  at  the 
Tredgold  Women's  College — she  had  already  matric- 
ulated into  London  University  from  school — she  came 
of  age,  and  she  bickered  with  her  aunt  for  latch-key 
privileges  on  the  strength  of  that  and  her  season  ticket. 
Shamefaced  curiosities  began  to  come  back  into  her 
mind,  thinly  disguised  as  literature  and  art.  She  read 
voraciously,  and  presently,  because  of  her  aunt's  censor- 
ship, she  took  to  smuggling  any  books  she  thought 
might  be  prohibited  instead  of  bringing  them  home 

6 


ANN   VERONICA   TALKS 

openly,  and  she  went  to  the  theatre  whenever  she  could 
produce  an  acceptable  friend  to  accompany  her.  She 
passed  her  general  science  examination  with  double 
honors  and  specialized  in  science.  She  happened  to 
have  an  acute  sense  of  form  and  unusual  mental  lucidity, 
and  she  found  in  biology,  and  particularly  in  com- 
parative anatomy,  a  very  considerable  interest,  albeit 
the  illumination  it  cast  upon  her  personal  life  was  not 
altogether  direct.  She  dissected  well,  and  in  a  year  she 
found  herself  chafing  at  the  limitations  of  the  lady  B.  Sc. 
who  retailed  a  store  of  faded  learning  in  the  Tredgold 
laboratory.  She  had  already  realized  that  this  instruc- 
tress was  hopelessly  wrong  and  foggy — it  is  the  test  of 
the  good  comparative  anatomist — upon  the  skull.  She 
discovered  a  desire  to  enter  as  a  student  in  the  Imperial 
College  at  Westminster,  where  Russell  taught,  and  go  on 
with  her  work  at  the  fountain-head. 

She  had  asked  about  that  already,  and  her  father  had 
replied,  evasively:  "We'll  have  to  see  about  that,  little 
Vee;  we'll  have  to  see  about  that."  In  that  posture  of 
being  seen  about  the  matter  hung  until  she  seemed 
committed  to  another  session  at  the  Tredgold  College, 
and  in  the  mean  time  a  small  conflict  arose  and  brought 
the  latch-key  question,  and  in  fact  the  question  of  Ann 
Veronica's  position  generally,  to  an  acute  issue. 

In  addition  to  the  various  business  men,  solicitors, 
civil  servants,  and  widow  ladies  who  lived  in  the  Morn- 
ingside  Park  Avenue,  there  was  a  certain  family  of  alien 
sympathies  and  artistic  quality,  the  Widgetts,  with 
which  Ann  Veronica  had  become  very  friendly.  Mr. 
Widgett  was  a  journalist  and  art  critic,  addicted  to  a 
greenish-gray  tweed  suit  and  "art"  brown  ties;  he 

7 


ANN    VERONICA 

smoked  corncob  pipes  in  the  Avenue  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, travelled  third  class  to  London  by  unusual  trains, 
and  openly  despised  golf.  He  occupied  one  of  the 
smaller  houses  near  the  station.  He  had  one  son,  who 
had  been  co-educated,  and  three  daughters  with  pecul- 
iarly jolly  red  hair  that  Ann  Veronica  found  adorable. 
Two  of  these  had  been  her  particular  intimates  at  the 
High  School,  and  had  done  much  to  send  her  mind  ex- 
ploring beyond  the  limits  of  the  available  literature  at 
home.  It  was  a  cheerful,  irresponsible,  shamelessly 
hard-up  family  in  the  key  of  faded  ^green  and  flattened 
purple,  and  the  girls  went  on  from  the  High  School  to 
the  Fadden  Art  School  and  a  bright,  eventful  life  of 
art  student  dances,  Socialist  meetings,  theatre  galleries, 
talking  about  work,  and  even,  at  intervals,  work;  and 
ever  and  again  they  drew  Ann  Veronica  from  her  sound 
persistent  industry  into  the  circle  of  these  experiences. 
They  had  asked  her  to  come  to  the  first  of  the  two 
great  annual  Fadden  Dances,  the  October  one,  and  Ann 
Veronica  had  accepted  with  enthusiasm.  And  now  her 
father  said  she  must  not  go. 

He  had  "  put  his  foot  down,"  and  said  she  must  not  go. 

Going  involved  two  things  that  all  Ann  Veronica's 
tact  had  been  ineffectual  to  conceal  from  her  aunt  and 
father.  Her  usual  dignified  reserve  had  availed  her 
nothing.  One  point  was  that  she  was  to  wear  fancy 
dress  in  the  likeness  of  a  Corsair's  bride,  and  the  other 
was  that  she  was  to  spend  whatever  vestiges  of  the  night 
remained  after  the  dance  was  over  in  London  with  the 
Widgett  girls  and  a  select  party  in  "  quite  a  decent  little 
hotel"  near  Fitzroy  Square. 

"But,  my  dear!"  said  Ann  Veronica's  aunt. 

8 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

"You  see,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  the  air  of  one 
who  shares  a  difficulty,  "  I've  promised  to  go.  I  didn't 
realize —  I  don't  see  how  I  can  get  out  of  it  now." 

Then  it  was  her  father  issued  his  ultimatum.  He  had 
conveyed  it  to  her,  not  verbally,  but  by  means  of  a  let- 
ter, which  seemed  to  her  a  singularly  ignoble  method  of 
prohibition.  "  He  couldn't  look  me  in  the  face  and 
say  it,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  But  of  course  it's  aunt's  doing  really." 

And  thus  it  was  that  as  Ann  Veronica  neared  the 
gates  of  home,  she  said  to  herself:  'Til  have  it  out  with 
him  somehow.  I'll  have  it  out  with  him.  And  if  he 
won't—" 

But  she  did  not  give  even  unspoken  words  to  the 
alternative  at  that  time. 

§3 

Ann  Veronica's  father  was  a  solicitor  with  a  good 
deal  of  company  business:  a  lean,  trustworthy,  worried- 
looking,  neuralgic,  clean-shaven  man  of  fifty-three,  with 
a  hard  mouth,  a  sharp  nose,  iron-gray  hair,  gray  eyes, 
gold-framed  glasses,  and  a  small,  circular  baldness  at 
the  crown  of  his  head.  His  name  was  Peter.  He  had 
had  five  children  at  irregular  intervals,  of  whom  Ann 
Veronica  was  the  youngest,  so  that  as  a  parent  he  came 
to  her  perhaps  a  little  practised  and  jaded  and  inatten- 
tive; and  he  called  her  his  "little  Vee,"  and  patted  her 
unexpectedly  and  disconcertingly,  and  treated  her 
promiscuously  as  of  any  age  between  eleven  and  eight- 
and-twenty.  The  City  worried  him  a  good  deal,  and 
what  energy  he  had  left  over  he  spent  partly  in  golf,  a 

9 


ANN    VERONICA 

game  he  treated  very  seriously,  and  partly  in  the  prac- 
tices of  microscopic  petrography. 

He  "went  in"  for  microscopy  in  the  unphilosophical 
Victorian  manner  as  his  "hobby."  A  birthday  present 
of  a  microscope  had  turned  his  mind  to  technical  mi- 
croscopy when  he  was  eighteen,  and  a  chance  friendship 
with  a  Holborn  microscope  dealer  had  confirmed  that 
bent.  He  had  remarkably  skilful  fingers  and  a  love  of 
detailed  processes,  and  he  had  become  one  of  the  most 
dexterous  amateur  makers  of  rock  sections  in  the  world. 
He  spent  a  good  deal  more  money  and  time  than  he 
could  afford  upon  the  little  room  at  the  top  of  the  house, 
in  producing  new  lapidary  apparatus  and  new  micro- 
scopic accessories  and  in  rubbing  down  slices  of  rock  to 
a  transparent  thinness  and  mounting  them  in  a  beauti- 
ful and  dignified  manner.  He  did  it,  he  said,  "to  dis- 
tract his  mind."  His  chief  successes  he  exhibited  to 
the  Lowndean  Microscopical  Society,  where  their  high 
technical  merit  never  failed  to  excite  admiration.  Their 
scientific  value  was  less  considerable,  since  he  chose  rocks 
entirely  with  a  view  to  their  difficulty  of  handling  or 
their  attractiveness  at  conversaziones  when  done.  He 
had  a  great  contempt  for  the  sections  the  "theorizers" 
produced.  They  proved  all  sorts  of  things  perhaps,  but 
they  were  thick,  unequal,  pitiful  pieces  of  work.  Yet 
an  indiscriminating,  wrong-headed  world  gave  such  fel- 
lows all  sorts  of  distinctions.  .  .  . 

He  read  but  little,  and  that  chiefly  healthy  light  fic- 
tion with  chromatic  titles,  The  Red  Sword,  The  Black 
Helmet,  The  Purple  Robe,  also  in  order  "to  distract  his 
mind."  He  read  it  in  winter  in  the  evening  after  din- 
ner, and  Ann  Veronica  associated  it  with  a  tendency  to 

10 


ANN   VERONICA   TALKS 

monopolize  the  lamp,  and  to  spread  a  very  worn  pair  of 
dappled  fawn-skin  slippers  across  the  fender.  She  won- 
dered occasionally  why  his  mind  needed  so  much  dis- 
traction. His  favorite  newspaper  was  the  Times,  which 
he  began  at  breakfast  in  the  morning  often  with  mani- 
fest irritation,  and  carried  off  to  finish  in  the  train,  leav- 
ing no  other  paper  at  home. 

It  occurred  to  Ann  Veronica  once  that  she  had  known 
him  when  he  was  younger,  but  day  had  followed  day, 
and  each  had  largely  obliterated  the  impression  of  its 
predecessor.  But  she  certainly  remembered  that  when 
she  was  a  little  girl  he  sometimes  wore  tennis  flannels, 
and  also  rode  a  bicycle  very  dexterously  in  through  the 
gates  to  the  front  door.  And  in  those  days,  too,  he  used 
to  help  her  mother  with  her  gardening,  and  hover  about 
her  while  she  stood  on  the  ladder  and  hammered  creep' 
ers  to  the  scullery  wall. 

It  had  been  Ann  Veronica's  lot  as  the  youngest  child 
to  live  in  a  home  that  became  less  animated  and  various 
as  she  grew  up.  Her  mother  had  died  when  she  was 
thirteen,  her  two  much  older  sisters  had  married  off — 
one  submissively,  one  insubordinately ;  her  two  brothers 
had  gone  out  into  the  world  well  ahead  of  her,  and  so 
she  had  made  what  she  could  of  her  father.  But  he  was 
not  a  father  one  could  make  much  of. 

His  ideas  about  girls  and  women  were  of  a  sentimental 
and  modest  quality;  they  were  creatures,  he  thought, 
either  too  bad  for  a  modern  vocabulary,  and  then  fre- 
quently most  undesirably  desirably,  or  too  pure  and 
good  for  life.  He  made  this  simple  classification  of  a 
large  and  various  sex  to  the  exclusion  of  all  intermediate 
kinds ;  he  held  that  the  two  classes  had  to  be  kept  apart 

a  II 


ANN    VERONICA 

even  in  thought  and  remote  from  one  another.  Women 
are  made  like  the  potter's  vessels — either  for  worship  or 
contumely,  and  are  withal  fragile  vessels.  He  had  never 
wanted  daughters.  Each  time  a  daughter  had  been 
born  to  him  he  had  concealed  his  chagrin  with  great 
tenderness  and  effusion  from  his  wife,  and  had  sworn 
unwontedly  and  with  passionate  sincerity  in  the  bath- 
room. He  was  a  manly  man,  free  from  any  strong 
maternal  strain,  and  he  had  loved  his  dark-eyed,  dainty, 
bright-colored,  and  active  little  wife  with  a  real  vein  of 
passion  in  his  sentiment.  But  he  had  always  felt  (he 
had  never  allowed  himself  to  think  of  it)  that  the 
promptitude  of  their  family  was  a  little  indelicate  of  her, 
and  in  a  sense  an  intrusion.  He  had,  however,  planned 
brilliant  careers  for  his  two  sons,  and,  with  a  certain 
human  amount  of  warping  and  delay,  they  were  pur- 
suing these.  One  was  in  the  Indian  Civil  Service  and 
one  in  the  rapidly  developing  motor  business.  The 
daughters,  he  had  hoped,  would  be  their  mother's 
care. 

He  had  no  ideas  about  daughters.  They  happen  to 
a  man. 

Of  course  a  little  daughter  is  a  delightful  thing  enough. 
It  runs  about  gayly,  it  romps,  it  is  bright  and  pretty,  it 
has  enormous  quantities  of  soft  hair  and  more  power  of 
expressing  affection  than  its  brothers.  It  is  a  lovely  lit- 
tle appendage  to  the  mother  who  smiles  over  it,  and  it 
does  things  quaintly  like  her,  gestures  with  her  very 
gestures.  It  makes  wonderful  sentences  that  you  can 
repeat  in  the  City  and  are  good  enough  for  Punch.  You 
call  it  a  lot  of  nicknames — "Babs"  and  "Bibs"  and 
"Viddles"  and  "Vee";  you  whack  at  it  playfully,  and 

12 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

it  whacks  you  back.     It  loves  to  sit  on  your  knee.     All 
that  is  jolly  and  as  it  should  be. 

But  a  little  daughter  is  one  thing  and  a  daughter  quite 
another.  There  one  comes  to  a  relationship  that  Mr. 
Stanley  had  never  thought  out.  When  he  found  him- 
self thinking  about  it,  it  upset  him  so  that  he  at  once 
resorted  to  distraction.  The  chromatic  fiction  with 
which  he  relieved  his  mind  glanced  but  slightly  at  this 
aspect  of  life,  and  never  with  any  quality  of  guidance. 
Its  heroes  never  had  daughters,  they  borrowed  other 
people's.  The  one  fault,  indeed,  of  this  school  of  fiction 
for  him  was  that  it  had  rather  a  light  way  with  parental 
rights.  His  instinct  was  in  the  direction  of  considering 
his  daughters  his  absolute  property,  bound  to  obey  him, 
his  to  give  away  or  his  to  keep  to  be  a  comfort  in  his 
declining  years  just  as  he  thought  fit.  About  this  con- 
ception of  ownership  he  perceived  and  desired  a  certain 
sentimental  glamour,  he  liked  everything  properly 
dressed,  but  it  remained  ownership.  Ownership  seemed 
only  a  reasonable  return'^or  UTe  cares  and  expenses  of 
a  daughter's  upbringing.  Daughters  were  not  like  sons. 
He  perceived,  however,  that  both  the  novels  he  read 
and  the  world  he  lived  in  discountenanced  these  assump- 
tions. Nothing  else  was  put  in  their  place,  and  they 
remained  sotto  voce,  as  it  were,  in  his  mind.  The  new 
and  the  old  cancelled  out;  his  daughters  became  quasi- 
independent  dependants — which  is  absurd.  One  mar- 
ried as  he  wished  and  one  against  his  wishes,  and  now 
here  was  Ann  Veronica,  his  little  Vee,  discontented  with 
her  beautiful,  safe,  and  sheltering  home,  going  about 
with  hatless  friends  to  Socialist  meetings  and  art-class 
dances,  and  displaying  a  disposition  to  carry  her  scientific 


ANN    VERONICA 

ambitions  to  unwomanly  lengths.  She  seemed  to  think 
he  was  merely  the  paymaster,  handing  over  the  means  of 
her  freedom.  And  now  she  insisted  that  she  must  leave 
the  chastened  security  of  the  Tredgold  Women's  College 
for  Russell's  unbridled  classes,  and  wanted  to  go  to  fancy 
dress  dances  in  pirate  costume  and  spend  the  residue  of 
the  night  with  Widgett's  ramshackle  girls  in  some  in- 
describable hotel  in  Soho! 

He  had  done  his  best  not  to  think  about  her  at  all, 
but  the  situation  and  his  sister  had  become  altogether 
too  urgent.  He  had  finally  put  aside  The  Lilac  Sun- 
bonnet,  gone  into  his  study,  lit  the  gas  fire,  and  written 
the  letter  that  had  brought  these  unsatisfactory  rela- 
tions to  a  head. 

§  4 

"MY  DEAR  VEE,"  he  wrote. 

These  daughters!  He  gnawed  his  pen  and  reflected, 
tore  the  sheet  up,  and  began  again. 

"My  DEAR  VERONICA, — Your  aunt  tells  me  you  have 
involved  yourselj  in  some  arrangement  with  the  Widgett 
girls  about  a  Fancy  Dress  Ball  in  London.  I  gather  you 
wish  to  go  up  in  some  fantastic  get-up,  wrapped  about  in 
your  opera  cloak,  and  that  after  the  festivities  you  propose 
to  stay  with  these  friends  of  yours,  and  without  any  older 
people  in  your  party,  at  an  hotel.  Now  I  am  sorry  to 
cross  you  in  anything  you  have  set  your  heart  upon,  but 
I  regret  to  say — 

"H'm,"  he  reflected,  and  crossed  out  the  last  four 
words. 

— but  this  cannot  be.^ 

14 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

"No,"  he  said,  and  tried  again:  "but  I  must  tell  you 
quite  definitely  that  I  feel  it  to  be  my  duty  to  forbid  any 
such  exploit." 

"Damn!"  he  remarked  at  the  defaced  letter;  and, 
taking  a  fresh  sheet,  he  recopied  what  he  had  written. 
A  certain  irritation  crept  into  his  manner  as  he  did  so. 

"7  regret  that  you  should  ever  have  proposed  it,"  he 
went  on. 

He  meditated,  and  began  a  new  paragraph. 

"  The  fact  of  it  is,  and  this  absurd  project  of  yours  only 
brings  it  to  a  head,  you  liave  begun  to  get  hold  of  some 
very  queer  ideas  about  what  a  young  lady  in  your  position 
may  or  may  not  venture  to  do.  I  do  not  think  you  quite 
understand  my  ideals  or  what  is  becoming  as  between 
father  and  daughter.  Your  attitude  to  me — " 

He  fell  into  a  brown  study.  It  was  so  difficult  to 
put  precisely. 

" — and  your  aunt — " 

For  a  time  he  searched  for  the  mot  juste.  Then  he 
went  on: 

" — and,  indeed,  to  most  of  the  established  things  in  life 
is,  frankly,  unsatisfactory.  You  are  restless,  aggressive, 
critical  with  all  the  crude  unthinking  criticism  of  youth. 
You  have  no  grasp  upon  the  essential  facts  of  life  (Ijtraji, 
God  you  never  may),  and  in  your  rash  ignorance  you  are 
prepared  to  dash  into  positions  that  may  end  in  lifelong 
regret.  The  life  of  a  young  girl  is  set  about  with  prowling 
pitfalls." 

He  was  arrested  for  a  moment  by  an  indistinct  pict- 
ure of  Veronica  reading  this  last  sentence.  But  he  was 
now  too  deeply  moved  to  trace  a  certain  unsatisfactori- 
ness  to  its  source  in  a  mixture  of  metaphors.  "Well," 


ANN   VERONICA 

he  said,  argumentatively,  "it  is.     That's  all  about  it. 
It's  time  she  knew." 

"  The  life  of  a  young  girl  is  set  about  with  prowling 
pitfalls,  from  which  she  must  be  shielded  at  all  costs." 

His  lips  tightened,  and  he  frowned  with  solemn 
resolution. 

"So  long  as  I  am  your  father,  so  long  as  your  life  is 
entrusted  to  my  care,  I  feel  bound  by  every  obligation  to 
use  my  authority  to  check  this  odd  disposition  of  yours 
toward  extravagant  enterprises.  A  day  will  come  when 
you  will  thank  me.  It  is  not,  my  dear  Veronica,  that  I 
think  there  is  any  harm  in  you;  there  is  not.  But  a  girl 
is  soiled  not  only  by  evil  but  by  the  proximity  of  evil, 
and  a  reputation  for  rashness  may  do  her  as  serious  an 
injury  as  really  reprehensible  conduct.  So  do  please 
believe  that  in  this  matter  I  am  acting  for  the  best." 

He  signed  his  name  and  reflected.  Then  he  opened 
the  study  door  and  called  "Mollie!"  and  returned  to 
assume  an  attitude  of  authority  on  the  hearthrug, 
before  the  blue  flames  and  orange  glow  of  the  gas  fire. 

His  sister  appeared. 

She  was  dressed  in  one  of  those  complicated  dresses 
that  are  all  lace  and  work  and  confused  patternings 
of  black  and  purple  and  cream  about  the  body,  and  she 
was  in  many  ways  a  younger  feminine  version  of  the 
same  theme  as  himself.  She  had  the  same  sharp  nose — 
which,  indeed,  only  Ann  Veronica,  of  all  the  family, 
had  escaped.  She  carried  herself  well,  whereas  her 
brother  slouched,  and  there  was  a  certain  aristocratic 
dignity  about  her  that  she  had  acquired  through  her 
long  engagement  to  a  curate  of  family,  a  scion  of  the 
Wiltshire  Edmondshaws.  He  had  died  before  they 

16 


ANN   VERONICA   TALKS 

married,  and  when  her  brother  became  a  widower  she 
had  come  to  his  assistance  and  taken  over  much  of  the 
care  of  his  youngest  daughter.  But  from  the  first  her 
rather  old-fashioned  conception  of  life  had  jarred  with 
the  suburban  atmosphere,  the  High  School  spirit  and 
the  memories  of  the  light  and  little  Mrs.  Stanley,  whose 
family  had  been  by  any  reckoning  inconsiderable — to 
use  the  kindliest  term.  Miss  Stanley  had  determined 
from  the  outset  to  have  the  warmest  affection  for  her 
youngest  niece  and  to  be  a  second  mother  in  her  life — • 
a  second  and  a  better  one;  but  she  had  found  much  to 
battle  with,  and  there  was  much  in  herself  that  Ann 
Veronica  failed  to  understand.  She  came  in  now  with  an 
air  of  reserved  solicitude. 

Mr.  Stanley  pointed  to  the  letter  with  a  pipe  he  had 
drawn  from  his  jacket  pocket.  "What  do  you  think  of 
that?"  he  asked. 

She  took  it  up  in  her  many-ringed  hands  and  read  it 
judicially.  He  filled  his  pipe  slowly. 

"Yes,"  she  said  at  last,  "it  is  firm  and  affectionate." 

"I  could  have,  said  more." 

"You  seem  to  have  said  just  what  had  to  be  said. 
It  seems  to  me  exactly  what  is  wanted.  She  really 
must  not  go  to  that  affair." 

She  paused,  and  he  waited  for  her  to  speak. 

"  I  don't  think  she  quite  sees  the  harm  of  those  people 
or  the  sort  of  life  to  which  they  would  draw  her,"  she 
said.  "They  would  spoil  every  chance." 

"She  has  chances?"  he  said,  helping  her  out. 

"She  is  an  extremely  attractive  girl,"  she  said;  and 
added,  "to  some  people.  Of  course,  one  doesn't  like  to 
talk  about  things  until  there  are  things  to  talk  about." 


ANN    VERONICA 

"All  the  more  reason  why  she  shouldn't  get  herself 
talked  about." 

"That  is  exactly  what  I  feel." 

Mr.  Stanley  took  the  letter  and  stood  with  it  in  his 
hand  thoughtfully  for  a  time.  "I'd  give  anything," 
he  remarked,  "to  see  our  little  Vee  happily  and  com- 
fortably married." 

He  gave  the  note  to  the  parlormaid  the  next  morning 
in  an  inadvertent,  casual  manner  just  as  he  was  leaving 
the  house  to  catch  his  London  train.  When  Ann 
Veronica  got  it  she  had  at  first  a  wild,  fantastic  idea 
that  it  contained  a  tip. 

§5 

Ann  Veronica's  resolve  to  have  things  out  with  her 
father  was  not  accomplished  without  difficulty. 

He  was  not  due  from  the  City  until  about  six,  and 
so  she  went  and  played  Badminton  with  the  Widgett 
girls  until  dinner-time.  The  atmosphere  at  dinner 
was  not  propitious.  Her  aunt  was  blandly  amiable 
above  a  certain  tremulous  undertow,  and  talked  as  if 
to  a  caller  about  the  alarming  spread  of  marigolds 
that  summer  at  the  end  of  the  garden,  a  sort  of  Yellow 
Peril  to  all  the  smaller  hardy  annuals,  while  her  father 
brought  some  papers  to  table  and  presented  himself  as 
preoccupied  with  them.  "It  really  seems  as  if  we  shall 
have  to  put  down  marigolds  altogether  next  year," 
Aunt  Molly  repeated  three  times,  "and  do  away  with 
marguerites.  They  seed  beyond  all  reason."  Elizabeth, 
the  parlormaid,  kept  coming  in  to  hand  vegetables 
whenever  there  seemed  a  chance  of  Ann  Veronica  asking 

18 


ANN   VERONICA   TALKS 

for  an  interview.  Directly  dinner  was  over  Mr.  Stanley, 
having  pretended  to  linger  to  smoke,  fled  suddenly 
up-stairs  to  petrography,  and  when  Veronica  tapped 
he  answered  through  the  locked  door,  "Go  away,  Vee! 
I'm  busy,"  and  made  a  lapidary's  wheel  buzz  loudly. 

Breakfast,  too,  was  an  impossible  occasion.  He  read 
the  Times  with  an  unusually  passionate  intentness, 
and  then  declared  suddenly  for  the  earlier  of  the  two 
trains  he  used. 

"I'll  come  to  the  station,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "I 
may  as  well  come  up  by  this  train." 

"I  may  have  to  run,"  said  her  father,  with  an  appeal 
to  his  watch. 

"I'll  run,  too,"  she  volunteered. 

Instead  of  which  they  walked  sharply.  . 

"I  say,  daddy,"  she  began,  and  was  suddenly  short 
of  breath. 

"If  it's  about  that  dance  project,"  he  said,  "it's  no 
good,  Veronica.  I've  made  up  my  mind." 

"You'll  make  me  look  a  fool  before  all  my  friends." 

"You  shouldn't  have  made  an  engagement  until  you'd 
consulted  your  aunt." 

"I  thought  I  was  old  enough,"  she  gasped,  between 
laughter  and  crying. 

Her  father's  step  quickened  to  a  trot.  "I  won't 
have  you  quarrelling  and  crying  in  the  Avenue,"  he 
said.  "Stop  it!  ...  If  you've  got  anything  to  say, 
you  must  say  it  to  your  aunt — ' ' 

"But  look  here,  daddy!" 

He  flapped  the  Times  at  her  with  an  imperious 
gesture. 

"It's  settled.  You're  not  to  go.  You're  not  to  go.'' 

19 


ANN    VERONICA 

"But  it's  about  other  things." 

"I  don't  care.     This  isn't  the  place." 

"Then  may  I  come  to  the  study  to-night — after 
dinner?" 

"I'm— busy/" 

"It's  important.  If  I  can't  talk  anywhere  else — 
I  do  want  an  understanding." 

Ahead  of  them  walked  a  gentleman  whom  it  was 
evident  they  must  at  their  present  pace  very  speedily 
overtake.  It  was  Ramage,  the  occupant  of  the  big 
house  at  the  end  of  the  Avenue.  He  had  recently 
made  Mr.  Stanley's  acquaintance  in  the  train  and 
shown  him  one  or  two  trifling  civilities.  He  was  an 
outside  broker  and  the  proprietor  of  a  financial  news- 
paper; he  had  come  up  very  rapidly  in  the  last  few  years, 
and  Mr.  Stanley  admired  and  detested  him  in  almost 
equal  measure.  It  was  intolerable  to  think  that  he 
might  overhear  words  and  phrases.  Mr.  Stanley's  pace 
slackened. 

"You've  no  right  to  badger  me  like  this,  Veronica," 
he  said.  "I  can't  see  what  possible  benefit  can  come 
of  discussing  things  that  are  settled.  If  you  want 
advice,  your  aunt  is  the  person.  However,  if  you  must 
air  your  opinions — " 

"To-night,  then,  daddy!" 

He  made  an  angry  but  conceivably  an  assenting  noise, 
and  then  Ramage  glanced  back  and  stopped,  saluted 
elaborately,  and  waited  for  them  to  come  up.  He  was 
a  square-faced  man  of  nearly  fifty,  with  iron-gray  hair, 
a  mobile,  clean-shaven  mouth  and  rather  protuberant 
black  eyes  that  now  scrutinized  Ann  Veronica.  He 
dressed  rather  after  the  fashion  of  the  West  End  than 

20 


ANN   VERONICA   TALKS 

the  City,  and  affected  a  cultured  urbanity  that  some- 
how disconcerted  and  always  annoyed  Ann  Veronica's 
father  extremely.  He  did  not  play  golf,  but  took  his 
exercise  on  horseback,  which  was  also  unsympathetic. 

"Stuffy  these  trees  make  the  Avenue,"  said  Mr. 
Stanley  as  they  drew  alongside,  to  account  for  his  own 
ruffled  and  heated  expression.  "They  ought  to  have 
been  lopped  in  the  spring." 

"There's  plenty  of  time,"  said  Ramage.  "Is  Miss 
Stanley  coming  up  with  us?" 

"I  go  second,"  she  said,  "and  change  at  Wimbledon." 

"We'll  all  go  second,"  said  Ramage,  "if  we  may?" 

Mr.  Stanley  wanted  to  object  strongly,  but  as  he 
could  not  immediately  think  how  to  put  it,  he  content- 
ed himself  with  a  grunt,  and  the  motion  was  carried. 
"How's  Mrs.  Ramage?"  he  asked. 

"Very  much  as  usual,"  said  Ramage.  "She  finds 
lying  up  so  much  very  irksome.  But,  you  see,  she  has 
to  lie  up." 

The  topic  of  his  invalid  wife  bored  him,  and  he  turned 
at  once  to  Ann  Veronica.  "And  where  are  you  going?" 
he  said.  "Are  you  going  on  again  this  winter  with  that 
scientific  work  of  yours?  It's  an  instance  of  heredity, 
I  suppose."  For  a  moment  Mr.  Stanley  almost  liked 
Ramage.  "You're  a  biologist,  aren't  you?" 

He  began  to  talk  of  his  own  impressions  of  biology 
as  a  commonplace  magazine  reader  who  had  to  get 
what  he  could  from  the  monthly  reviews,  and  was  glad 
to  meet  with  any  information  from  nearer  the  fountain- 
head.  In  a  little  while  he  and  she  were  talking  quite 
easily  and  agreeably.  They  went  on  talking  in  the 
train — it  seemed  to  her  father  a  slight  want  of  deference 

21 


ANN    VERONICA 

to  him — and  he  listened  and  pretended  to  read  the 
Times.  He  was  struck  disagreeably  by  Ramage's  air 
of  gallant  consideration  and  Ann  Veronica's  self-pos- 
sessed answers.  These  things  did  not  harmonize  with 
his  conception  of  the  forthcoming  (if  unavoidable)  inter- 
view. After  all,  it  came  to  him  suddenly  as  a  harsh  dis- 
covery that  she  might  be  in  a  sense  regarded  as  grown- 
up. He  was  a  man  who  in  all  things  classified  without 
nuance,  and  for  him  there  were  in  the  matter  of  age  just 
two  feminine  classes  and  no  more — girls  and  women. 
The  distinction  lay  chiefly  in  the  right  to  pat  their  heads. 
But  here  was  a  girl — she  must  be  a  girl,  since  she  was  his 
daughter  and  patable — imitating  the  woman  quite  re- 
markably and  cleverly,  fie  resumed  his  listening.  She 
was  discussing  one  of  those  modern  advanced  plays  with 
a  remarkable,  with  an  extraordinary,  confidence. 

"His  love-making,"  she  remarked,  "struck  me  as 
unconvincing.  He  seemed  too  noisy." 

The  full  significance  of  her  words  did  not  instantly 
appear  to  him.  Then  it  dawned.  Good  heavens!  She 
was  discussing  love-making.  For  a  time  he  heard  no 
more,  and  stared  with  stony  eyes  at  a  Book-War  proc- 
lamation in  leaded  type  that  filled  half  a  column  of  the 
Times  that  day.  Could  she  understand  what  she  was 
talking  about?  Luckily  it  was  a  second-class  carriage 
and  the  ordinary  fellow-travellers  were  not  there.  Ev- 
erybody, he  felt,  must  be  listening  behind  their  papers. 

Of  course,  girls  repeat  phrases  and  opinions  of  which 
they  cannot  possibly  understand  the  meaning.  But  a 
middle-aged  man  like  Ramage  ought  to  know  better 
than  to  draw  out  a  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  friend  and 
neighbor.  .  .  . 

22 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

Well,  after  all,  he  seemed  to  be  turning  the  subject. 
"Broddick  is  a  heavy  man,"  he  was  saying,  "and  the 
main  interest  of  the  play  was  the  embezzlement." 
Thank  Heaven !  Mr.  Stanley  allowed  his  paper  to  drop 
a  little,  and  scrutinized  the  hats  and  brows  of  their  three 
fellow-travellers. 

They  reached  Wimbledon,  and  Ramage  whipped  out 
to  hand  Miss  Stanley  to  the  platform  as  though  she  had 
been  a  duchess,  and  she  descended  as  though  such  at- 
tentions from  middle-aged,  but  still  gallant,  merchants 
were  a  matter  of  course.  Then,  as  Ramage  readjusted 
himself  in  a  corner,  he  remarked:  "These  young  people 
shoot  up,  Stanley.  It  seems  only  yesterday  that  she 
was  running  down  the  Avenue,  all  hair  and  legs." 

Mr.  Stanley  regarded  him  through  his  glasses  with 
something  approaching  animosity. 

"Now  she's  all  hat  and  ideas,"  he  said,  with  an  air  of 
humor. 

"She  seems  an  unusually  clever  girl,"  said  Ramage. 

Mr.  Stanley  regarded  his  neighbor's  clean-shaven  face 
almost  warily.  "I'm  not  sure  whether  we  don't  rather 
overdo  all  this  higher  education,"  he  said,  with  an  effect 
of  conveying  profound  meanings. 


§  6 

He  became  quite  sure,  by  a  sort  of  accumulation  of 
reflection,  as  the  day  wore  on.  He  found  his  youngest 
daughter  intrusive  in  his  thoughts  all  through  the 
morning,  and  still  more  so  in  the  afternoon.  He  saw 
her  young  and  graceful  back  as  she  descended  from  the 

23 


ANN    VERONICA 

carriage,  severely  ignoring  him,  and  recalled  a  glimpse 
he  had  of  her  face,  bright  and  serene,  as  his  train  ran  out 
of  Wimbledon.  He  recalled  with  exasperating  per- 
plexity her  clear,  matter-of-fact  tone  as  she  talked 
about  love-making  being  unconvincing.  He  was  really 
very  proud  of  her,  and  extraordinarily  angry  and  resent- 
ful at  the  innocent  and  audacious  self-reliance  that 
seemed  to  intimate  her  sense  of  absolute  independence 
of  him,  her  absolute  security  without  him.  After  all, 
she  only  looked  a  woman.  She  was  rash  and  ignorant, 
absolutely  inexperienced.  Absolutely.  He  began  to 
think  of  speeches,  very  firm,  explicit  speeches,  he  would 
make. 

He  lunched  in  the  Legal  Club  in  Chancery  Lane,  and 
met  Ogilvy.  Daughters  were  in  the  air  that  day. 
Ogilvy  was  full  of  a  client's  trouble  in  that  matter,  a 
grave  and  even  tragic  trouble.  He  told  some  of  the 
particulars. 

"Curious  case,"  said  Ogilvy,  buttering  his  bread  and 
cutting  it  up  in  a  way  he  had.  "Curious  case — and  sets 
one  thinking." 

He  resumed,  after  a  mouthful:  "Here  is  a  girl  of  six- 
teen or  seventeen,  seventeen  and  a  half  to  be  exact, 
running  about,  as  one  might  say,  in  London.  School- 
girl. Her  family  are  solid  West  End  people,  Kensington 
people.  Father — dead.  She  goes  out  and  comes  home. 
Afterward  goes  on  to  Oxford.  Twenty-one,  twenty-two. 
Why  doesn't  she  marry?  Plenty  of  money  under  her 
father's  will.  Charming  girl." 

He  consumed  Irish  stew  for  some  moments. 

"  Married  already,"  he  said,  with  his  mouth  full. 
"Shopman." 

24 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

"Good  God!"  said  Mr.  Stanley. 

"Good-looking  rascal  she  met  at  Worthing.  Very 
romantic  and  all  that.  He  fixed  it.'* 

"  But—" 

"  He  left  her  alone.  Pure  romantic  nonsense  on  her 
part.  Sheer  calculation  on  his.  Went  up  to  Somerset 
House  to  examine  the  will  before  he  did  it.  Yes.  Nice 
position." 

"  She  doesn't  care  for  him  now?" 

"  Not  a  bit.  What  a  girl  of  sixteen  cares  for  is  hair 
and  a  high  color  and  moonlight  and  a  tenor  voice.  I 
suppose  most  of  our  daughters  would  marry  organ- 
grinders  if  they  had  a  chance — at  that  age.  My  son 
wanted  to  marry  a  woman  of  thirty  in  a  tobacconist's 
shop.  Only  a  son's  another  story.  We  fixed  that. 
Well,  that's  the  situation.  My  people  don't  know  what 
to  do.  Can't  face  a  scandal.  Can't  ask  the  gent  to  go 
abroad  and  condone  a  bigamy.  He  misstated  her  age 
and  address;  but  you  can't  get  home  on  him  for  a  thing 
like  that.  .  .  .  There  you  are!  Girl  spoilt  for  life.  Makes 
one  want  to  go  back  to  the  Oriental  system!" 

Mr.  Stanley  poured  wine.  "Damned  Rascal!"  he 
said.  "Isn't  there  a  brother  to  kick  him?" 

"Mere  satisfaction,"  reflected  Ogilvy.  "Mere  sen- 
suality. I  rather  think  they  have  kicked  him,  from  the 
tone  of  some  of  the  letters.  Nice,  of  course.  But  it 
doesn't  alter  the  situation." 

"  It's  these  Rascals,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  and  paused. 

"'Always  has  been,"  said  Ogilvy.  "Our  interest  lies 
in  heading  them  off." 

"There  was  a  time  when  girls  didn't  get  these  ex- 
travagant ideas.'' 

25 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  Lydia  Languish,  for  example.  Anyhow,  they  didn't 
run  about  so  much." 

"  Yes,  That's  about  the  beginning.  It's  these  damned 
navels.  All  this  torrent  of  misleading,  spurious  stuff 
that  pours  from  the  press.  These  sham  ideals  and 
advanced  notions,  Women  who  Dids,  and  all  that  kind 
of  thing.  ..." 

Ogilvy  reflected.  "This,  girl — she's  really  a  very 
charming,  frank  person— had  had  her  imagination  fired, 
so  she  told  me,  by  a  school  performance  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet." 

Mr.  Stanley  decided  to  treat  that  as  irrelevant.  "  There 
ought  to  be  a  Censorship  of  Books.  We  want  it  badly 
at  the  present  time.  Even  with  the  Censorship  of  Plays 
there's  hardly  a  decent  thing  to  which  a  man  can  take 
his  wife  and  daughters,  a  creeping  taint  of  suggestion 
everywhere.  What  would  it  be  without  that  safeguard  ?" 

Ogilvy  pursued  his  own  topic.  "  I'm  inclined  to  think, 
Stanley,  myself  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  it. was  the 
expurgated  Romeo  and  Juliet  did  the  mischief.  If  our 
young  person  hadn't  had  the  nurse  part  cut  out,  eh  ? 
She  might  have  known  more  and  done  less.  I  was 
curious  about  that.  All  they  left  it  was  the  moon  and 
stars.  And  the  balcony  and  '  My  Romeo !' " 

"  Shakespeare  is  altogether  different  from  the  modern 
stuff.  Altogether  different.  I'm  not  discussing  Shake- 
speare. rl  don't  want  to  Bowdlerize  Shakespeare.  I'm 
not  that,  sort.  I  quite  agree.  But  this  modern 
miasma — " 

Mr.  Stanley  took  mustard  savagely. 

"Well,  we  won't  go  into  Shakespeare,"  said  Ogilvy. 
"  What  interests  me  is  that  our  young  women  nowadays 

26 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 

are  running  about  as  free  as  air  practically,  with  regis- 
try offices  and  all  sorts  of  accommodation  round  the 
corner.  Nothing  to  check  their  proceedings  but  a 
declining  habit  of  telling  the  truth  and  the  limitations 
of  their  imaginations.  And  in  that  respect  they  stir 
up  one  another.  Not  my  affair^of  course,  but  I  think 
we  ought  to  Jeach  them  mm-e^or^estrain  them  more. 
One  or  the  other.  They're  too  free  for  their  innocence 
or  too  innocent  for  their  freedom?  That's  my  point. 
Are  you  going  to  have  any  apple-tart,  Stanley?  The 
apple-tart's  been  very  good  lately — very  good!" 


§7 

At  the  end  of  dinner  that  evening  Ann  Veronica 
began:  " Father!" 

Her  father  looked  at  her  over  his  glasses  and  spoke 
with  grave  deliberation.  "If  there  is  anything  you 
want  to  say  to  me,"  he  said,  "you  must  say  it  in  the 
study.  I  am  going  to  smoke  a  little  here,  and  then  I 
shall  go  to  the  study.  I  don't  see  what  you  can  have 
to  say.  I  should  have  thought  my  note — cleared  up 
everything.  There  are  some  papers  I  have  to  look 
through  to-night — important  papers." 

"  I  won't  keep  you  very  long,  daddy, ' '  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  I  don't  see,  Mollie,"  he  remarked,  taking  a  cigar  from 
the  box  on  the  table  as  his  sister  and  daughter  rose, 
"why  you  and  Vee  shouldn't  discuss  this  little  affair — 
whatever  it  is — without  bothering  me." 

It  was  the  first  time  this  controversy  had  become 
triangular,  for  all  three  of  them  were  shy  by  habit. 
3  27 


ANN    VkERONICA 

He  stopped  in  mid-sentence,  and  Ann  Veronica  opened 
the  door  for  her  aunt.  The  air  was  thick  with  feelings. 
Her  aunt  went  out  of  the  room  with  dignity  and  a  rustle, 
and  up-stairs  to  the  fastness  of  her  own  room.  She 
agreed  entirely  with  her  brother.  It  distressed  and 
confused  her  that  the  girl  should  not  come  to  her.  It 
seemed  to  show  a  want  of  affection,  to  be  a  deliberate 
and  unmerited  disregard,  to  justify  the  reprisal  of  being 
hurt. 

When  Ann  Veronica  came  into  the  study  she  found 
every  evidence  of  a  carefully  foreseen  grouping  about 
the  gas  fire.  Both  arm-chairs  had  been  moved  a  little 
so  as  to  face  each  other  on  either  side  of  the  fender,  and 
in  the  circular  glow  of  the  green-shaded  lamp  there 
lay,  conspicuously  waiting,  a  thick  bundle  of  blue  and 
white  papers  tied  with  pink  tape.  Her  father  held  some 
printed  document  in  his  hand,  and  appeared  not  to  ob- 
serve her  entry.  "Sit  down,"  he  said,  and  perused — 
"perused"  is  the  word  for  it — for  some  moments.  Then 
he  put  the  paper  by.  "And  what  is  it  all  about,  Ve- 
ronica?" he  asked,  with  a  deliberate  note  of  irony,  look- 
ing at  her  a  little  quizzically  over  his  glasses. 

Ann  Veronica  looked  bright  and  a  little  elated,  and 
she  disregarded  her  father's  invitation  to  be  seated. 
She  stood  on  the  mat  instead,  and  looked  down  on  him. 
"  Look  here,  daddy,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  of  great  reason- 
ableness, "  I  must  go  to  that  dance,  you  know." 

Her  father's  irony  deepened.  "Why?"  he  asked, 
suavely. 

Her  answer  was  not  quite  ready.  "Well,  because  I 
don't  see  any  reason  why  I  shouldn't." 

"You  see,  I  do." 

28 


ANN    VERONICA   TALKS 


"Why  shouldn't  I  go?" 

"It  isn't  a  suitable  place;  it  isn't  a  suitable  gather- 
ing." 

"  But,  daddy,  what  do  you  know  of  the  place  and  the 
gathering?" 

"And  it's  entirely  out  of  order;  it  isn't  right,  it  isn't 
correct;  it's  impossible  for  you  to  stay  in  an  hotel  in 
London  —  the  idea  is  preposterous.  I  can't  imagine 
what  possessed  you,  Veronica." 

He  put  his  head  on  one  side,  pulled  down  the  corners 
of  his  mouth,  and  looked  at  her  over  his  glasses. 

"But  why  is  it  preposterous?"  asked  Ann  Veronica, 
and  fiddled  with  a  pipe  on  the  mantel. 

"Surely!"  he  remarked,  with  an  expression  of  worried 
appeal. 

"You  see,  daddy,  I  don't  think  it  is  preposterous. 
That's  really  what  I  want  to  discuss.  It  comes  to  this  — 
am  I  to  be  trusted  to  take  care  of  myself,  or  am  I  not?" 

"To  judge  from  this  proposal  of  yours,  I  should  say 
not." 

"I  think  I  am." 

"As  long  as  you  remain  under  my  roof  —  "  he  began, 
and  paused. 

"You  are  going  to  treat  me  as  though  I  wasn't. 
Well,  I  don't  think  that's  fair." 

"Your  ideas  of  fairness  —  "  he  remarked,  and  discon- 
tinued that  sentence.  "My  dear  girl,"  he  said,  in  a 
tone  of  patient  reasonableness,  "you  are  a  mere  child. 
You  know  nothing  of  life,  nothing  of  its  dangers,  nothing 
of  its  possibilities.  You  think  everything  is  harmless  and 
simple,  and  so  forth.  It  isn't.  It  isn't.  That's  where  you 
go  wrong.  In  some  things,  in  many  things,  you  must 

20 


ANN    VERONICA 

trust  to  your  elders,  to  those  who  know  more  of  life  than 
you  do.  Your  aunt  and  I  have  discussed  all  this 
matter.  There  it  is.  You  can't  go." 

The  conversation  hung  for  a  moment.  Ann  Veronica 
tried  to  keep  hold  of  a  complicated  situation  and  not 
lose  her  head.  She  had  turned  round  sideways,  so  as 
to  look  down  into  the  fire. 

"You  see,  father,"  she  said,  "'it  isn't  only  this  affair 
of  the  dance.  I  want  to  go  to  that  because  it's  a  new 
experience,  because  I  think  it  will  be  interesting  and  give 
me  a  view  of  things.  You  say  I  know  nothing.  That's 
probably  true.  But  how  am  I  to  know  of  things?" 

"Some  things  I  hope  you  may  never  know,"  he  said. 

"I'm  not  so  sure.  I  want  to  know — just  as  much 
as  I  can." 

"Tut!"  he  said,  fuming,  and  put  out  his  hand  to  the 
papers  in  the  pink  tape. 

"Well,  I  do.  It's  just  that  I  want  to  say.  I  want 
to  be  a  human  being;  I  want  to  learn  about  things 
and  know  about  things,  and  not  to  be  protected  as  some- 
thing too  precious  for  life,  cooped  up  in  one  narrow  lit- 
tle corner." 

"Cooped  up!"  he  cried.  "Did  I  stand  in  the  way  of 
your  going  to  college?  Have  I  ever  prevented  you 
going  about  at  any  reasonable  hour?  You've  got  a 
bicycle!" 

"H'm!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  then  went  on: 
"I  want  to  be  taken  seriously.  A  girl — at  my  age — 
is  grown-up.  I  want  to  go  on  with  my  University  work 
under  proper  conditions,  now  that  I've  done  the  Inter- 
mediate. It  isn't  as  though  I  haven't  done  well.  I've 
never  muffed  an  exam.  yet.  Roddy  muffed  two.  ..." 

30 


ANN    VERONICA    TALKS 

Her  father  interrupted.  "Now  look  here,  Veronica, 
let  us  be  plain  with  each  other.  You  are  not  going 
to  that  infidel  Russell's  classes.  You  are  not  going 
anywhere  but  to  the  Tredgold  College.  I've  thought 
that  out,  and  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to  it.  All 
sorts  of  considerations  come  in.  While  you  live  in  my 
house  you  must  follow  my  ideas.  You  are  wrong  even 
about  that  man's  scientific  position  and  his  standard  of 
work.  There  are  men  in  the  Lowndean  who  laugh  at 
him — simply  laugh  at  him.  And  I  have  seen  work  by 
his  pupils  myself  that  struck  me  as  being — well,  next 
door  to  shameful.  There's  stories,  too,  about  his 
demonstrator,  Capes.  Something  or  other.  The  kind 
of  man  who  isn't  content  with  his  science,  and  writes 
articles  in  the  monthly  reviews.  Anyhow,  there  it  is: 
you  are  not  going  there" 

The  girl  received  this  intimation1  in  silence,  but  the 
face  that  looked  down  upon  the  gas  fire  took  an  ex- 
pression of  obstinacy  that  brought  out. a  hitherto  latent 
resemblance  between  parent  and  child.  When  she 
spoke,  her  lips  twitched. 

"Then  I  suppose  when  I  have  graduated  I  am  to  come 
home?" 

"  It  seems  the  natural  course." 

"And  do  nothing?" 

"There  are  plenty  of  things  a  girl  can  find  to  do  at 
home." 

"Until  some  one  takes  pity  on  me  and  marries  me?" 

He  raised  his  eyebrows  in  mild  appeal.  His  foot 
tapped  impatiently,  and  he  took  up  the  papers. 

"Look  here,  father,"  she  said,  with  a  change  in  her 
voice,  "suppose  I  won't  stand  it?" 


ANN    VERONICA 

He  regarded  her  as  though  this  was  a  new  idea. 

"Suppose,  for  example,  I  go  to  this  dance?" 

"You  won't/' 

"  Well  "—her  breath  failed  her  for  a  moment.  "  Kow 
would  you  prevent  it?"  she  asked. 

"But  I  have  forbidden  it!"  he  said,  raising  his 
voice. 

"Yes,  I  know.     But  suppose  I  go?" 

"Now,  Veronica!  No,  no.  This  won't  do.  Under- 
stand me !  I  forbid  it.  I  do  not  want  to  hear  from  you 
even  the  threat  of  disobedience."  He  spoke  loudly. 
"The  thing  is  forbidden!" 

"  I  am  ready  to  give  up  anything  that  you  show  to  be 
wrong." 

"You  will  give  up  anything  I  wish  you  to  give  up." 

They  stared  at  each  other  through  a  pause,  and 
both  faces  were  flushed  and  obstinate. 

She  was  trying  by  some  wonderful,  secret,  and  motion- 
less gymnastics  to  restrain  her  tears.  But  when  she 
spoke  her  lips  quivered,  and  they  came.  "  I  mean  to  go 
to  that  dance!"  she  blubbered.  "I  mean  to  go  to  that 
dance!  I  meant  to  reason  with  you,  but  you  won't 
reason.  You're  dogmatic." 

At  the  sight  of  her  tears  his  expression  changed  to  a 
mingling  of  triumph  and  concern.  He  stood  up,  ap- 
parently intending  to  put  an  arm  about  her,  but  she 
stepped  back  from  him  quickly.  She  produced  a  hand- 
kerchief, and  with  one  sweep  of  this  and  a  simultaneous 
gulp  had  abolished  her  fit  of  weeping.  His  voice  now 
had  lost  its  ironies. 

"Now,  Veronica,"  he  pleaded,  "Veronica,  this  is 
most  unreasonable.  All  we  do  is  for  your  good.  Neither 

32 


ANN   VERONICA   TALKS 

your  aunt  nor  I  have  any  other  thought  but  what  is 
best  for  you." 

"Only  you  won't  let  me  live.  Only  you  won't  let  me 
exist!" 

Mr.  Stanley  lost  patience.     He  bullied  frankly. 

"What  nonsense  is  this?  What  raving!  My  dear 
child,  you  do  live,  you  do  exist!  You  have  this  home. 
You  have  friends,  acquaintances,  social  standing, 
brothers  and  sisters,  every  advantage !  Instead  of  which, 
you  want  to  go  to  some  mixed  classes  or  other  and  cut 
up  rabbits  and  dance  about  at  nights  in  wild  costumes 
with  casual  art  student  friends  and  God  knows  who. 
That — that  isn't  living!  You  are  beside  yourself.  You 
don't  know  what  you  ask  nor  what  you  say.  You  have 
neither  reason  nor  logic.  I  am  sorry  to  seem  to  hurt  you, 
but  all  I  say  is  for  your  good.  You  must  not,  you  shall 
not  go.  On  this  I  am  resolved.  I  put  my  foot  down 
like — like  adamant.  And  a  time  will  come,  Veronica, 
mark  my  words,  a  time  will  come  when  you  will  bless 
me  for  my  firmness  to-night.  It  goes  to  my  heart  to 
disappoint  you,  but  this  thing  must  not  be." 

He  sidled  toward  her,  but  she  recoiled  from  him, 
leaving  him  in  possession  of  the  hearth-rug. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "good-night,  father." 

"What!"  he  asked;   "not  a  kiss?" 

She  affected  not  to  hear. 

The  door  closed  softly  upon  her.  For  a  long  time  he 
remained  standing  before  the  fire,  staring  at  the  situa- 
tion. Then  he  sat  down  and  filled  his  pipe  slowly  and 
thoughtfully.  .  .  . 

"  I  don't  see  what  else  I  could  have  said,"  he  re- 
marked. 

33 


CHAPTER   THE    SECOND 

ANN     VERONICA     GATHERS     POINTS    OF    VIEW 
§    I 

"ARE  you  coming  to  the  Fadden  Dance,  Ann  Veron- 
/vica?"  asked  Constance  Widgett. 

Ann  Veronica  considered  her  answer.  "  I  mean  to," 
she  replied. 

"You  are  making  your  dress?" 

"Such  as  it  is." 

They  were  in  the  elder  Widgett  girl's  bedroom;  Hetty 
was  laid  up,  she  said,  with  a  sprained  ankle,  and  a  mis- 
cellaneous party  was  gossiping  away  her  tedium.  It 
was  a  large,  littered,  self-forgetful  apartment,  decorated 
with  unframed  charcoal  sketches  by  various  incipient 
masters;  and  an  open  bookcase,  surmounted  by  plaster 
casts  and  the  half  of  a  human  skull,  displayed  an  odd 
miscellany  of  books — Shaw  and  Swinburne,  Tom  Jones, 
Fabian  Essays,  Pope  and  Dumas,  cheek  by  jowl.  Con- 
stance Widgett's  abundant  copper-red  hair  was  bent 
down  over  some  dimly  remunerative  work — stencilling 
in  colors  upon  rough,  white  material — at  a  kitchen  table 
she  had  dragged  up-stairs  for  the  purpose;  while  on  her 
bed  there  was  seated  a  slender  lady  of  thirty  or  so  in 
a  dingy  green  dress,  whom  Constance  had  introduced 

34 


POINTS    OF    VIEW 

with  a  wave  of  her  hand  as  Miss  Miniver.  Miss  Miniver 
looked  out  on  the  world  through  large  emotional  blue 
eyes  that  were  further  magnified  by  the  glasses  she  wore, 
and  her  nose  was  pinched  and  pink,  and  her  mouth  was 
whimsically  petulant.  Her  glasses  moved  quickly  as 
her  glance  travelled  from  face  to  face.  She  seemed 
bursting  with  the  desire  to  talk,  and  watching  for  her 
opportunity.  (On  her  lapel  was  aajvory  button,  bear- 
ing the  words  "Votes  for  Women/j  Ann  Veronica  sat 
at  the  foot  of  the"  sufferer^  bed,  while  Teddy  Widgett, 
being  something  of  an  athlete,  occupied  the  only  bed- 
room chair — a  decadent  piece,  essentially  a  tripod  and 
largely  a  formality — and  smoked  cigarettes,  and  tried 
to  conceal  the  fact  that  he  was  looking  all  the  time  at 
Ann  Veronica's  eyebrows.  Teddy  was  the  hatless  young 
man  who  had  turned  Ann  Veronica  aside  from  the 
Avenue  two  days  before.  He  was  the  junior  of  both 
his  sisters,  co-educated  and  much  broken  in  to  feminine 
society.  A  bowl  of  roses,  just  brought  by  Ann  Veronica, 
adorned  the  communal  dressing-table,  and  Ann  Veron- 
ica was  particularly  trim  in  preparation  for  a  call  she 
was  to  make  with  her  aunt  later  in  the  afternoon. 

Ann  Veronica  decided  to  be  more  explicit.     "  I've 
been,"  she  said,  "  forbidden  to  come." 

"  Hul-/o/"  said  Hetty,  turning  her  head  on  the  pillow; 
and  Teddy  remarked  with  profound  emotion,  "  My  God!" 

"Yes,"   said  Ann  Veronica,   "and  that  complicates 
the  situation." 

"  Auntie?"  asked  Constance,  who  was  conversant  with 
Ann  Veronica's  affairs. 

"No!     My  father.     It's — it's  a  serious  prohibition." 

"Why?"  asked  Hetty. 

35 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  That's  the  point.  I  asked  him  why,  and  he  hadn't 
a  reason." 

"  You  asked  your  father  for  a  reason!"  said  Miss 
Miniver,  with  great  intensity. 

"  Yes.  I  tried  to  have  it  out  with  him,  but  he  wouldn't 
have  it  out."  Ann  Veronica  reflected  for  an  instant. 
"That's  why  I  think  I  ought  to  come." 

"You  asked  your  father  for  a  reason!"  Miss  Miniver 
repeated. 

"We  always  have  things  out  with  our  father,  poor 
dear!"  said  Hetty.  "  He's  got  almost  to  like  it." 

"Men,"  said  Miss  Miniver,  "never  have  a  reason. 
Never!  And  they  don't  know  it!  They  have  no  idea 
of  it.  It's  one  of  their  worst  traits,  one  of  their  very 
worst." 

"But  I  say,  Vee,"  said  Constance,  " if  you  come  and 
you  are  forbidden  to  come  there'll  be  the  deuce  of  a 
row." 

Ann  Veronica  was  deciding  for  further  confidences. 
Her  situation  was  perplexing  her  very  much,  and  the 
Widgett  atmosphere  was  lax  and  sympathetic,  and  pro- 
vocative of  discussion.  "  It  isn't  only  the  dance,"  she 
said. 

"There's  the  classes,"  said  Constance,  the  well- 
informed. 

"There's  the  whole  situation.  Apparently  I'm  not 
to  exist  yet.  I'm  not  to  study,  I'm  not  to  grow.  I've 
got  to  stay  at  home  and  remain  in  a  state  of  suspended 
animation." 

"Dusting!"  said  Miss  Miniver,  in  a  sepulchral  voice. 

"Until  you  marry,  Vee,"  said  Hetty. 

"  Well,  I  don't  feel  like  standing  it." 

36 


POINTS   OF   VIEW 

"Thousands  of  women  have  married  merely  for  free- 
dom," said  Miss  Miniver.  "Thousands!  Ugh!  And 
found  it  a  worse  slavery." 

"I  suppose,"  said  Constance,  stencilling  away  at 
bright  pink  petals,  "  it's  our  lot.  But  it's  very  beastly." 

"What's  our  lot?"  asked  her  sister. 

"Slavery!  Downtroddenness!  \Vhen  I  think-  e£  it 
I  feel  all  over  boot  marks — men's  boots.  We  hide  it 
bravely,  but  so  it  is.  Damn!  I've  splashed." 

Miss  Miniver's  manner  became  impressive.  She  ad- 
dressed Ann  Veronica  with  an  air  of  conveying  great 
open  secrets  to  her.  "As  things  are  at  present,"  she 
said,  "  it  is  true.  We  live  under  man-made  institutions, 
and  that  is  what  they  amount  to.  Every  girl  in  the 
world  practically,  except  a  few  of  us  who  teach  or  type- 
write, and  then  we're  underpaid  and  sweated — it's 
dreadful  to  think  how  we  are  sweated!"  She  had  lost 
her  generalization,  whatever  it  was.  She  hung  for  a 
moment,  and  then  went  on,  conclusively,  "Until  we 
have  the  vote  that  is  how  things  will  be." 

"  I'm  all  for  the  vote,"  said  Teddy. 

"  I  suppose  a  girl  must  be  underpaid  and  sweated," 
said  Ann  Veronica.  "  I  suppose  there's  no  way  of  get- 
ting a  decent  income — independently." 

"Women  have  practically  no  economic  freedom,"  said 
Miss  Miniver,  "because  they  have  no  political  freedom. 
Men  have  seen  to  that.  The  one  profession,  the  one 
decent  profession,  I  mean,  for  a  woman — except  the 
stage — is  teaching,  and  there  we  trample  on  OQC  another. 
Everywhere  else — the  law,  medicine,  the  Stock  Ex- 
change— prejudice  bars  us." 

"There's  art,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "and  writing." 

37 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Every  one  hasn't  the  Gift.  Even  there  a  woman 
never  gets  a  fair  chance.  Men  are  against  her.  What- 
ever she  does  is  minimized.  All  the  best  novels  have 
been  written  by  women,  and  yet  see  how  men  sneer  at 
the  lady  novelist  still!  There's  only  one  way  to  get  on 
for  a  woman,  and  that  is  to  please  men.  That  is  what 
they  think  we  are  for!" 

"We're  beasts,"  said  Teddy.  "Beasts!" 
But  Miss  Miniver  took  no  notice  of  his  admission. 
"Of  course,"  said  Miss  Miniver — she  went  on  in  a 
regularly  undulating  voice — "we  do  please  men.  We 
have  that  gift.  We  can  see  round  them  and  behind 
them  and  through  them,  and  most  of  us  use  that  knowl- 
edge, in  the  silent  way  we  have,  for  our  great  ends. 
Not  all  of  us,  but  some  of  us.  Too  many.  I  wonder' 
what  men  would  say  if  we  threw  the  mask  aside — if  we 
really  told  them  what  We  thought  of  them ,  really  showed 
them  what  We  were."  A  flush  of  excitement  crept  into 
her  cheeks. 

"Maternity,"  she  said,  "has  been  our  undoing." 
From  that  she  opened  out  into  a  long,  confused,  em- 
phatic discourse  on  the  position  of  women,  full  of  won- 
derful statements,  while  Constance  worked  at  her 
stencilling  and  Ann  Veronica  and  Hetty  listened,  and 
Teddy  contributed  sympathetic  noises  and  consumed 
cheap  cigarettes.  As  she  talked  she  made  weak  little  gest- 
ures with  her  hands,  and  she  thrust  her  face  forward  from 
her  bent  shoulders;  and  she  peered  sometimes  at  Ann 
Veronica  and  sometimes  at  a  photograph  of  the  Axen- 
strasse,  near  Fluelen,  that  hung  upon  the  wall.  Ann 
Veronica  watched  her  face,  vaguely  sympathizing  with 
her,  vaguely  disliking  her  physical  insufficiency  and  her 

38" 


POINTS   OF    VIEW 

convulsive  movements,) and  the  fine  eyebrows  were  knit 
with  a  faint  perplexity.  Essentially  the  talk  was  a 
mixture  of  fragments  of  sentences  heard,  of  passages  read, 
or  arguments  indicated  rather  than  stated,  and  all  of  it 
was  served  in  a  sauce  of  strange  enthusiasm,  thin  yet 
|  in  tense.  Ann  Veronica  had  had  some  training  at  the 
Tredgold  College  in  disentangling  threads  from  confused 
statements,  and  she  had  a  curious  persuasion  that  in  all 
this  fluent  muddle  there  was  something — something  real, 
something  that  signified.  But  it  was  very  hard  to  follow. 
She  did  not  understand  the  note  of  hostility  to  men  that 
ran  through  it  all,  the  bitter  vindictiveness  that  lit  Miss 
Miniver's  cheeks  and  eyes,  the  sense  of  some  at  last  in- 
supportable wrong  slowly  accumulated.  She  had  no 
r  inkling  of  that  insupportable  wrong. 

e  are  the  species,"  said  Miss  Miniver,  "men  are 
only  incidents.  They  give  themselves  airs,  but  so  it  is. 
In  all  the  species  of  animals  the  females  are  more  im- 
jj^  r  jportant  than  the  males;  the  males  have  to  please  them. 
»XjV/  Look  at  the  cock's  feathers,  look  at  the  competition 
there  is  everywhere,  except  among  humans.  The  stags 
and  oxen  and  things  all  have  to  fight  for  us,  everywhere. 
Only  in  man  is  the  male  made  the  most  important.  And 
that  happens  through  our  maternity;  it's  our  very  im- 
portance that  degrades  us.  \While  we  w^ere  minding  the 
children  they  stole  our  rights  and  liberties)  The  children 
made  us  slaves,  and  the  men  took  advantage  of  it.  It's 
— Mrs.  Shalford  says — the  accidental  conquering  the 
essential?)  Originally  in  the  first  animals  there  were  no 
males,  none  at  all.  It  has  been  proved.  Then  they 
appear  among  the  lower  things" — she  made  meticulous 
gestures  to  figure  the  scale  of  life ;  she  seemed  to  be  hold- 

39 


ANN    VERONICA 

ing  up  specimens,  and  peering  through  her  glasses  at 
them — "among  crustaceans  and  things,  just  as  little 
creatures,  ever  so  inferior  to  the  females.  Mere  hangers 
on.  Things  you  would  laugh  at.  And  among  human 
beings,  too,  women  to  begin  with  were  the  rulers  and 
leaders;  they  owned  all  the  property,  they  invented  all 
the  arts.  The  primitive  government  was  the  Matri- 
archate.  The  Matriarchate !  The  Lords  of  Creation 
just  ran  about  and  did  what  they  were  told." 

"But  is  that  really  so?"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"It  has  been  proved,"  said  Miss  Miniver,  and  added, 
"by  American  professors." 

"But  how  did  they  prove  it?" 

"By  science,"  said  Miss  Miniver,  and  hurried  on, 
putting  out  a  rhetorical  hand  that  showed  a  slash  of 
finger  through  its  glove.  "And  now,  look  at  us!  See 
what  we  have  become.  Toys!  Delicate  trifles!  A  sex 
of  invalids.  It  is  we  who  have  become  the  parasites  and 
toys." 

It  was,  Ann  Veronica  felt,  at  once  absurd  and  ex- 
traordinarily right.  Hetty,  who  had  periods  of  lucid 
expression,  put  the  thing  for  her  from  her  pillow.  She 
charged  boldly  into  the  space  of  Miss  Miniver's  rhetorical 
pause. 

"It  isn't  quite  that  we're  toys.  Nobody  toys  with 
me.  Nobody  regards  Constance  or  Vee  as  a  delicate 
trifle." 

Teddy  made  some  confused  noise,  a  thoracic  street 
row;  some  remark  was  assassinated  by  a  rival  in  his 
throat  and  buried  hastily  under  a  cough. 

"They'd  better  not,"  said  Hetty.  "The  point  is 
we're  not  toys,  toys  isn't  the  word;  we're  litter.  We're 

40 


POINTS   OF   VIEW 

handfuls.  We're  regarded  as  inflammable  litter  that 
mustn't  be  left  about.  We  are  the  species,  and  maternity 
is  our  game;  that's  all  right,  but  nobody  wants  that  ad- 
mitted for  fear  we  should  all  catch  fire,  and  set  about 
fulfilling  the  purpose  of  our  beings  without  waiting  for 
further  explanations.  As  if  we  didn't  know!  The 
practical  trouble  is  our  ages.  They  used  to  marry  us  off 
at  seventeen,  rush  us  into  things  before  we  had  time  to 
protest.  They  don't  now.  Heaven  knows  why!  They 
don't  marry  most  of  us  off  now  until  high  up  in  the 
twenties.  And  the  age  gets  higher.  We  have  to  hang 
about  in  the  interval.  There's  a  great  gulf  opened,  and 
nobody's  got  any  plans  what  to  do  with  us.  So  the 
world  is  choked  with  waste  and  waiting  daughters. 
Hanging  about!  And  they  start  thinking  and  asking 
questions,  and  begin  to  be  neither  one  thing  nor  the 
other.  We're  partly  human  beings  and  partly  females 
in  suspense."  l(^v  ^UUuj^cJ^ CWAxyujJIrtAnA' u 

Miss  Miniver  followed  with  an  expression  of  perplexity, 
her  mouth  shaped  to  futile  expositions.  The  Widgett 
method  of  thought  puzzled  her  weakly  rhetorical  mind. 
"There  is  no  remedy,  girls,"  she  began,  breathlessly, 
"except  the  Vote.  Give  us  that—" 

Ann  Veronica  came  in  with  a  certain  disregard  of  Miss 
Miniver.  "That's  it,"  she  said.  "They  have  no  plans 
for  us.  They  have  no  ideas  what  to  do  with  us." 

"Except,"  said  Constance,  surveying  her  work  with 
her  head  on  one  side,  "  to  keep  the  matches  from  the 
litter." 

"And  they  won't  let  us  make  plans  for  ourselves." 

"We  will,"  said  Miss  Miniver,  refusing  to  be  sup- 
pressed, "if  some  of  us  have  to  be  killed  to  get  it." 


ANN    VERONICA 

And  she  pressed  her  lips  together  in  white  resolution  and 
nodded,  and  she  was  manifestly  full  of  that  same  pas- 
sion for  conflict  and  self-sacrifice  that  has  given  the  world 
martyrs  since  the  beginning  of  things.  t  "  I  wish  I  could 
make  every  woman,  every  girl,  see  tm's  as  clearly  as  I 
see  it — just  what  the  Vote  means  to  us.  Just  what  it 
means.  ..." 

§    2 

As  Ann  Veronica  went  back  along  the  Avenue  to  her 
aunt  she  became  aware  of  a  light-footed  pursuer  run- 
ning. Teddy  overtook  her,  a  little  out  of  breath,  his 
innocent  face  flushed,  his  straw-colored  hair  disordered. 
He  was  out  of  breath,  and  spoke  in  broken  sen- 
tences. 

"I  say,  Vee.  Half  a  minute,  Vee.  It's  like  this: 
You  want  freedom.  Look  here.  You  know — if  you 
want  freedom.  Just  an  idea  of  mine.  You  know  how 
those  Russian  students  do?  In  Russia.  Just  a  formal 
marriage.  Mere  formality.  Liberates  the  girl  from 
parental  control.  See  ?  You  marry  me.  Simply.  No 
further  responsibility  whatever.  Without  hindrance — 
present  occupation.  Why  not?  Quite  willing.  Get  a 
license.  Just  an  idea  of  mine.  Doesn't  matter  a  bit 
to  me.  Do  anything  to  please  you,  Vee.  Anything. 
Not  fit  to  be  dust  on  your  boots.  Still — there  you  are!" 

He  paused. 

Ann  Veronica's  desire  to  laugh  unrestrainedly  was 
checked  by  the  tremendous  earnestness  of  his  expression. 
"  Awfully  good  of  you,  Teddy,"  she  said. 

He  nodded  silently,  too  full  for  words. 

42 


POINTS   OF    VIEW 

"But  I  don't  see,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "just  how  it 
fits  the  present  situation." 

"No!  Well,  I  just  suggested  it.  Threw  it  out.  Of 
course,  if  at  any  time — see  reason — alter  your  opinion. 
Always  at  your  service.  No  offence,  I  hope.  All  right! 
I'm  off.  Due  to  play  hockey.  Jackson's.  Horrid  snort- 
ers !  So  long,  Vee !  Just  suggested  it.  See  ?  Nothing 
really.  Passing  thought." 

"Teddy,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "you're  a  dear!" 

"Oh,  quite!"  said  Teddy,  convulsively,  and  lifted  an 
imaginary  hat  and  left  her. 


§3 

The  call  Ann  Veronica  paid  with  her  aunt  that  after- 
noon had  at  first  much  the  same  relation  to  the  Widgett 
conversation  that  a  plaster  statue  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  have  to  a  carelessly  displayed  interior  on  a  dis- 
secting-room table.  The  Widgetts  talked  with  a  re- 
markable absence  of  external  coverings,  the  Palsworthys 
found  all  the  meanings  of  life  on  its  surfaces.  They 
seemed  the  most  wrapped  things  in  all  Ann  Veronica's 
wrappered  world.  The  Widgett  mental  furniture  was 
perhaps  worn  and  shabby,  but  there  it  was  before  you, 
undisguised,  fading  visibly  in  an  almost  pitiless  sun- 
light. Lady  Palsworthy  was  the  widow  of  a  knight 
who  had  won  his  spurs  in  the  wholesale  coal  trade;  she 
was  of  good  seventeenth-century  attorney  blood,  a 
county  family,  and  distantly  related  to  Aunt  Mollie's 
deceased  curate.  She  was  the  social  leader  of  Morning- 
side  Park,  and  in  her  superficial  and  euphuistic  way  an 
4  43 


ANN    VERONICA 

extremely  kind  and  pleasant  woman.  With  her  lived 
a  Mrs.  Pramlay,  a  sister  of  the  Morningside  Park  doctor, 
and  a  very  active  and  useful  member  of  the  Committee 
of  the  Impoverished  Gentlewomen's  Aid  Society.  Both 
ladies  were  on  easy  and  friendly  terms  with  all  that  was 
best  in  Morningside  Park  society;  they  had  an  after- 
noon once  a  month  that  was  quite  well  attended,  they 
sometimes  gave  musical  evenings,  they  dined  out  and 
gave  a  finish  to  people's  dinners,  they  had  a  full-sized 
croquet  lawn  and  tennis  beyond,  and  understood  the 
art  of  bringing  people  together.  And  they  never  talked 
of  anything  at  all,  never  discussed,  never  even  en- 
couraged gossip.  They  were  just  nice. 

Ann  Veronica  found  herself  walking  back  down  the 
Avenue  that  had  just  been  the  scene  of  her  first  pro- 
posal beside  her  aunt,  and  speculating  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life  about  that  lady's  mental  attitudes.  Her  pre- 
vailing effect  was  one  of  quiet  and  complete  assurance, 
as  though  she  knew  all  about  everything,  and  was  only 
restrained  by  her  instinctive  delicacy  from  telling  what 
she  knew.  But  the  restraint  exercised  by  her  instinc- 
tive delicacy  was  very  great;  over  and  above  coarse  "of 
sexual  matters  it  covered  religion  and  politics  and  any 
mention  of  money  matters  or  crime,  and  Ann  Veronica 
found  herself  wondering  whether  these  exclusions  repre- 
sented, after  all,  anything  more  than  suppressions.  Was 
there  anything  at  all  in  those  locked  rooms  of  her 
aunt's  mind?  Were  they  fully  furnished  and  only  a 
little  dusty  and  cobwebby  and  in  need  of  an  airing, 
or  were  they  stark  vacancy  except,  perhaps,  for  a  cock- 
roach or  so  or  the  gnawing  of  a  rat?  What  was  the 
mental  equivalent  of  a  rat's  gnawing?  The  image  was 

44 


POINTS    OF   VIEW 

going  astray.  But  what  would  her  aunt  think  of  Teddy's 
recent  off-hand  suggestion  of  marriage?  What  would 
she  think  of  the  Widgett  conversation?  Suppose  she 
was  to  tell  her  aunt  quietly  but  firmly  about  the  parasitic 
males  of  degraded  Crustacea.  The  girl  suppressed  a 
chuckle  that  would  have  been  inexplicable. 

There  came  a  wild  rush  of  anthropological  lore  into 
her  brain,  a  flare  of  indecorous  humor.  It  was  one  of 
the  secret  troubles  of  her  mind,  this  grotesque  twist  her 
ideas  would  sometimes  take,  as  though  they  rebelled 
and  rioted.  After  all,  she  found  herself  reflecting,  be- 
hind her  aunt's  complacent  visage  there  was  a  past  as 
lurid  as  any  one's — not,  of  course,  her  aunt's  own  per- 
sonal past,  which  was  apparently  just  that  curate  and 
almost  incredibly  jejune,  but  an  ancestral  past  with  all 
sorts  of  scandalous  things  in  it:  fire  and  slaughterings, 
exogamy,  marriage  by  capture,  corroborees,  cannibal- 
ism! Ancestresses  with  perhaps  dim  anticipatory  like- 
nesses to  her  aunt,  their  hair  less  neatly  done,  no  doubt, 
their  manners  and  gestures  as  yet  undisciplined,  but  still 
ancestresses  in  the  direct  line,  must  have  danced  through 
a  brief  and  stirring  life  in  the  woady  buff.  Was  there 
no  echo  anywhere  in  Miss  Stanley's  pacified  brain? 
Those  empty  rooms,  if  they  were  empty,  were  the  equiva- 
lents of  astoundingly  decorated  predecessors.  Perhaps 
it  was  just  as  well  there  was  no  inherited  memory. 

Ann  Veronica  was  by  this  time  quite  shocked  at  her 
own  thoughts,  and  yet  they  would  go  on  with  their 
freaks.  Great  vistas  of  history  opened,  and  she  and  her 
aunt  were  near  reverting  to  the  primitive  and  passionate 
and  entirely  indecorous  arboreal — were  swinging  from 
branches  by  the  arms,  and  really  going  on  quite  dread- 

45 


ANN    VERONICA 

fully — when  their  arrival  at  the  Palsworthys'  happily 
checked  this  play  of  fancy,  and  brought  Ann  Veronica 
back  to  the  exigencies  of  the  wrappered  life  again. 

Lady  Palsworthy  liked  Ann  Veronica  because  she 
was  never  awkward,  had  steady  eyes,  and  an  almost 
invariable  neatness  and  dignity  in  her  clothes.  She 
seemed  just  as  stiff  and  shy  as  a  girl  ought  to  be,  Lady 
Palsworthy  thought,  neither  garrulous  nor  unready, 
and  free  from  nearly  all  the  heavy  aggressiveness, 
the  overgrown,  overblown  quality,  the  egotism  and 
want  of  consideration  of  the  typical  modern  girl.  But 
then  Lady  Palsworthy  had  never  seen  Ann  Veronica 
running  like  the  wind  at  hockey.  She  had  never  seen 
her  sitting  on  tables  nor  heard  her  discussing  theology, 
and  had  failed  to  observe  that  the  graceful  figure  was 
a  natural  one  and  not  due  to  ably  chosen  stays.  She 
took  it  for  granted  Ann  Veronica  wore  stays — mild 
stays,  perhaps,  but  stays,  and  thought  no  more  of  the 
matter.  She  had  seen  her  really  only  at  teas,  with  the 
Stanley  strain  in  her  uppermost.  There  are  so  many 
girls  nowadays  who  are  quite  unpresentable  at  tea, 
with  their  untrimmed  laughs,  their  awful  dispositions  of 
their  legs  when  they  sit  down,  their  slangy  disrespect; 
they  no  longer  smoke,  it  is  true,  like  the  girls  of  the 
eighties  and  nineties,  nevertheless  to  a  fine  intelligence 
they  have  the  flavor  of  tobacco.  They  have  no 
amenities,  they  scratch  the  mellow  surface  of  things 
almost  as  if  they  did  it  on  purpose ;  and  Lady  Palsworthy 
and  Mrs.  Pramlay  lived  for  amenities  and  the  mellowed 
surfaces  of  things.  Ann  Veronica  was  one  of  the  few 
young  people — and  one  must  have  young  people  just 
as  one  must  have  flowers — one  could  ask  to  a  little 

46 


POINTS   OF    VIEW 

gathering  without  the  risk  of  a  painful  discord.  Then 
the  distant  relationship  to  Miss  Stanley  gave  them  a 
slight  but  pleasant  sense  of  proprietorship  in  the  girl. 
They  had  their  little  dreams  about  her. 

Mrs.  Pramlay  received  them  in  the  pretty  chintz 
drawing-room,  which  opened  by  French  windows  on 
the  trim  garden,  with  its  croquet  lawn,  its  tennis-net 
in  the  middle  distance,  and  its  remote  rose  alley  lined 
with  smart  dahlias  and  flaming  sunflowers.  Her  eye 
met  Miss  Stanley's  understandingly,  and  she  was  if 
anything  a  trifle  more  affectionate  in  her  greeting 
to  Ann  Veronica.  Then  Ann  Veronica  passed  on 
toward  the  tea  in  the  garden,  which  was  dotted  with 
the  elite  of  Morningside  Park  society,  and  there  she 
was  pounced  upon  by  Lady  Palsworthy  and  given  tea 
and  led  about.  Across  the  lawn  and  hovering  in- 
decisively, Ann  Veronica  saw  and  immediately  affected 
not  to  see  Mr.  Manning,  Lady  Palsworthy's  nephew, 
a  tall  young  man  of  seven-and-thirty  with  a  handsome, 
thoughtful,  impassive  face,  a  full  black  mustache, 
and  a  certain  heavy  luxuriousness  of  gesture.  The 
party  resolved  itself  for  Ann  Veronica  into  a  game 
in  which  she  manoeuvred  unostentatiously  and  finally 
unsuccessfully  to  avoid  talking  alone  with  this  gentle- 
man. 

Mr.  Manning  had  shown  on  previous  occasions  that 
he  found  Ann  Veronica  interesting  and  that  he  wished 
to  interest  her.  He  was  a  civil  servant  of  some  standing, 
and  after  a  previous  conversation  upon  aesthetics  of  a 
sententious,  nebulous,  and  sympathetic  character,  he 
had  sent  her  a  small  volume,  which  he  described  as  the 
fruits  of  his  leisure  and  which  wras  as  a  matter  of  fact 

47 


ANN    VERONICA 

rather  carefully  finished  verse.  It  dealt  with  fine  as- 
pects of  Mr.  Manning's  feelings,  and  as  Ann  Veronica's 
mind  was  still  largely  engaged  with  fundamentals  and 
found  no  pleasure  in  metrical  forms,  she  had  not  as  yet 
cut  its  pages/  So  that  as  she  saw  him  she  remarked 
to  herself  very  faintly  but  definitely,  "Oh,  golly!" 
and  set  up  a  campaign  of  avoidance  that  Mr.  Manning  at 
last  broke  down  by  coming  directly  at  her  as  she  talked 
with  the  vicar's  aunt  about  some  of  the  details  of  the 
alleged  smell  of  the  new  church  lamps.  He  did  not 
so  much  cut  into  this  conversation  as  loom  over  it,  for 
he  was  a  tall,  if  rather  studiously  stooping,  man. 

The  face  that  looked  down  upon  Ann  Veronica  was 
full  of  amiable  intention.  "Splendid  you  are  looking 
to-day,  Miss  Stanley,"  he  said.  "How  well  and  jolly 
you  must  be  feeling." 

He  beamed  over  the  effect  of  this  and  shook  hands 
with  effusion,  and  Lady  Palsworthy  suddenly  appear- 
ed as  his  confederate  and  disentangled  the  vicar's 
aunt. 

"I  love  this  warm  end  of  summer  more  than  words 
can  tell,"  he  said.  "I've  tried  to  make  words  tell  it. 
It's  no  good.  Mild,  you  know,  and  boon.  You  want 
music." 

Ann  Veronica  agreed,  and  tried  to  make  the  manner 
of  her  assent  cover  a  possible  knowledge  of  a  probable 
poem. 

"Splendid  it  must  be  to  be  a  composer.  Glorious! 
The  Pastoral.  Beethoven;  he's  the  best  of  them. 
Don't  you  think?.-.  Turn,  tay,  turn,  tay." 

Ann  Veronica  did. 

"What  have  you  been  doing  since  our  last  talk? 

48 


POINTS   OF    VIEW 

Still  cutting  up  rabbits  and  probing  into  things?     I've 
often  thought  of  that  talk  of  ours — often." 

He  did  not  appear  to  require  any  answer  to  his 
question. 

"Often,"  he  repeated,  a  little  heavily. 

"Beautiful  these  autumn  flowers  are,"  said  Ann 
Veronica,  in  a  wide,  uncomfortable  pause. 

"Do  come  and  see  the  Michaelmas  daisies  at  the 
end  of  the  garden,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  "  they're  a  dream." 
And  Ann  Veronica  found  herself  being  carried  off  to  an 
isolation  even  remoter  and  more  conspicuous  than  the 
corner  of  the  lawn,  with  the  whole  of  the  party  aiding 
and  abetting  and  glancing  at  them.  "Damn!"  said 
Ann  Veronica  to  herself,  rousing  herself  for  a  conflict. 

Mr.  Manning  told  her  he  loved  beauty,  and  extorted 
a  similar  admission  from  her;  he  then  expatiated  upon 
his  own  love  of  beauty.  He  said  that  for  him  beauty 
justified  life,  that  he  could  not  imagine  a  good  action 
that  was  not  a  beautiful  one  nor  any  beautiful  thing 
that  could  be  altogether  bad.  Ann  Veronica  hazarded 
an  opinion  that  as  a  matter  of  history  some  very  beautiful 
people  had,  to  a  quite  considerable  extent,  been  bad, 
but  Mr.  Manning  questioned  whether  when  they  were 
bad  they  were  really  beautiful  or  when  they  were 
beautiful  bad.  Ann  Veronica  found  her  attention 
wandering  a  little  as  he  told  her  that  he  was  not  ashamed 
to  feel  almost  slavish  in  the  presence  of  really  beautiful 
people,  and  then  they  came  to  the  Michaelmas  daisies. 
They  were  really  very  fine  and  abundant,  with  a  blaze 
of  perennial  sunflowers  behind  them. 

"They  make  me  want  to  shout,"  said  Mr.  Manning, 
with  a  sweep  of  the  arm. 

49 


ANN    VERONICA 

"They're  very  good  this  year,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
avoiding  controversial  matter. 

"Either  I  want  to  shout,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  "when 
I  see  beautiful  things,  or  else  I  want  to  weep."  He 
paused  and  looked  at  her,  and  said,  with  a  sudden  drop 
into  a  confidential  undertone,  "Or  else  I  want  to  pray." 

"When  is  Michaelmas  Day?"  said  Ann  Veronica,  a 
little  abruptly. 

"Heaven  knows!"  said  Mr.  Manning;  and  added, 
"the  twenty-ninth." 

"  I  thought  it  was  earlier,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "Wasn't 
Parliament  to  reassemble?" 

He  put  out  his  hand  and  leaned  against  a  tree  and 
crossed  his  legs.  "You're  not  interested  in  politics?" 
he  asked,  almost  with  a  note  of  protest. 

"  Well,  rather,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "  It  seems —  It's 
interesting." 

"Do  you  think  so?  I  find  my  interest  in  that  sort  of 
thing  decline  and  decline." 

"I'm  curious.  Perhaps  because  I  don't  know.  I 
suppose  an  intelligent  person  ought  to  be  interested  in 
political  affairs.  They  concern  us  all." 

"  I  wonder,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  with  a  baffling  smile. 

"I  think  they  do.  After  all,  they're  history  in  the 
making." 

"A  sort  of  history,"  said  Mr.  Manning;  and  repeated, 
"a  sort  of  history.  But  look  at  these  glorious  daisies!" 

"But  don't  you  think  political  questions  are  im- 
portant?" 

"  I  don't  think  they  are  this  afternoon,  and  I  don't 
think  they  are  to  you." 

Ann  Veronica  turned  her  back  on  the  Michaelmas 

So 


POINTS    OF    VIEW 

daisies,  and  faced  toward  the  house  with  an  air  of  a  duty 
completed. 

"  Just  come  to  that  seat  now  you  are  here,  Miss  Stanley, 
and  look  down  the  other  path ;  there's  a  vista  of  just  the 
common  sort.  Better  even  than  these." 

Ann  Veronica  walked  as  he  indicated. 

"  You  know  I'm  old-fashioned,  Miss  Stanley.  I  don't 
think  women  need  to  trouble  about  political  questions." 

"  I  want  a  vote,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"Really!"  said  Mr.  Manning,  in  an  earnest  voice, 
and  waved  his  hand  to  the  alley  of  mauve  and  purple. 
"I  wish  you  didn't." 

"  Why  not?"     She  turned  on  him. 

"  It  jars.  It  jars  with  all  my  ideas.  Women  to  me 
are  something  so  serene,  so  fine,  so  feminine,  and  politics 
are  so  dusty,  so  sordid,  so  wearisome  and  quarrelsome. 
It  seems  to  me  a  woman's  duty  to  be  beautiful,  to  be 
beautiful  and  to  behave  beautifully,  and  politics  are  by 
their  very  nature  ugly.  You  see,  I — I  am  a  woman 
worshipper.  I  worshipped  women  long  before  I  found 
any  woman  I  might  ever  hope  to  worship.  Long  ago. 
And — the  idea  of  committees,  of  hustings,  of  agenda- 
papers!" 

"  I  don't  see  why  the  responsibility  of  beauty  -should 
all  be  shifted  on  to  the  women,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
suddenly  remembering  a  part  of  Miss  Miniver's  discourse. 

"It  rests  with  them  by  the  nature  of  things.  Why 
should  you  who  are  queens  come  down  from  your  thrones  ? 
If  you  can  afford  it,  we  can't.  We  can't  afford  to  turn 
our  women,  our  Madonnas,  our  Saint  Catherines,  our 
Mona  Lisas,  our  goddesses  and  angels  and  fairy  princesses, 
into  a  sort  of  man.  Womanhood  is  sacred  to  me.  My 

Si 


ANN    VERONICA 

politics  in  that  matter  wouldn't  be  to  give  women  votes. 
I'm  a  Socialist,  Miss  Stanley." 

"What?"  said  Ann  Veronica,  startled. 

"  A  Socialist  of  the  order  of  John  Ruskin.  Indeed  I 
am!  I  would  make  this  country  a  collective  monarchy, 
and  all  the  girls  and  women  in  it  should  be  the  Queen. 
They  should  never  come  into  contact  with  politics  or 
economics — or  any  of  those  things.  And  we  men  would 
work  for  them  and  serve  them  in  loyal  fealty." 

"That's  rather  the  theory  now,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
"Only  so  many  men  neglect  their  duties." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  with  an  air  of  emerging 
from  an  elaborate  demonstration,  "and  so  each  of  us 
must,  under  existing  conditions,  being  chivalrous  indeed 
to  all  women,  choose  for  himself  his  own  particular  and 
worshipful  queen." 

"  So  far  as  one  can  judge  from  the  system  in  practice," 
said  Ann  Veronica,  speaking  in  a  loud,  common-sense, 
detached  tone,  and  beginning  to  walk  slowly  but  resolute- 
ly toward  the  lawn,  "it  doesn't  work." 

"  Every  one  must  be  experimental,"  said  Mr.  Manning, 
and  glanced  round  hastily  for  further  horticultural  points 
of  interest  in  secluded  corners.  None  presented  them- 
selves to  save  him  from  that  return. 

"  That's  all  very  well  rtvhen  one  isn't  the  material  ex- 
perimented upon,"; Ann  Veronica  had  remarked. 

"Women  would — they  do  have  far  more  power  than 
they  think,  as  influences,  as  inspirations." 

Ann  Veronica  said  nothing  in  answer  to  that. 

"You  say  you  want  a  vote,"  said  Mr.  Manning, 
abruptly. 

"I  think  I  ought  to  have  one." 

52 


POINTS   OF    VIEW 

"  Well,  I  have  two,"  said  Mr.  Manning — "  one  in  Oxford 
University  and  one  in  Kensington."  He  caught  up  and 
went  on  with  a  sort  of  clumsiness :  "  Let  me  present  you 
with  them  and  be  your  voter." 

There  followed  an  instant's  pause,  and  then  Ann 
Veronica  had  decided  to  misunderstand. 

"I  want  a  vote  for  myself,"  she  said.  "I  don't  see 
why  I  should  take  it  second-hand.  Though  it's  very 
kind  of  you.  And  rather  unscrupulous.  Have  you 
ever  voted,  Mr.  Manning?  I  supppse  there's  a  sort  of 
place  like  a  ticket-office.  And  a  ballot-box — "  Her 
face  assumed  an  expression  of  intellectual  conflict. 
"What  is  a  ballot-box  like,  exactly?"  she  asked,  as 
though  it  was  very  important  to  her. 

Mr.  Manning  regarded  her  thoughtfully  for  a  moment 
and  stroked  his  mustache.  "A  ballot-box,  you  know," 
he  said,  "is  very  largely  just  a  box."  He  made  quite  a 
long  pause,  and  went  on,  with  a  sigh:  "You  have  a 
voting  paper  given  you — " 

They  emerged  into  the  publicity  of  the  lawn. 

"Yes,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "yes,"  to  his  explanation, 
and  saw  across  the  lawn  Lady  Palsworthy  talking  to 
her  aunt,  and  both  of  them  staring  frankly  across  at  her 
and  Mr.  Manning  as  they  talked. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

THE     MORNING     OF     THE     CRISIS 


TWO  days  after  came  the  day  of  the  Crisis,  the  day 
of  the  Fadden  Dance.  It  would  have  been  a  crisis 
anyhow,  but  it  was  complicated  in  Ann  Veronica's  mind 
by  the  fact  that  a  letter  lay  on  the  breakfast- table  from 
Mr.  Manning,  and  that  her  aunt  focussed  a  brightly 
tactful  disregard  upon  this  throughout  the  meal.  Ann 
Veronica  had  come  down  thinking  of  nothing  in  the 
world  but  her  inflexible  resolution  to  go  to  the  dance  in 
the  teeth  of  all  opposition.  She  did  not  know  Mr. 
Manning's  handwriting,  and  opened  his  letter  and  read 
some  lines  before  its  import  appeared.  Then  for  a  time 
she  forgot  the  Fadden  affair  altogether.  With  a  well- 
simulated  unconcern  and  a  heightened  color  she  finished 
her  breakfast. 

She  was  not  obliged  to  go  to  the  Tredgold  College, 
because  as  yet  the  College  had  not  settled  down  for  the 
session.  She  was  supposed  to  be  reading  at  home,  and 
after  breakfast  she  strolled  into  the  vegetable  garden,  and 
having  taken  up  a  position  upon  the  staging  of  a  disused 
greenhouse  that  had  the  double  advantage  of  being 

54 


THE    MORNING    OF    THE    CRISIS 

hidden  from  the  windows  of  the  house  and  secure  from 
the  sudden  appearance  of  any  one,  she  resumed  the 
reading  of  Mr.  Manning's  letter. 

Mr.  Manning's  handwriting  had  an  air  of  being  clear 
without  being  easily  legible;  it  was  large  and  rather 
roundish,  with  a  lack  of  definition  about  the  letters  and 
a  disposition  to  treat  the  large  ones  as  liberal-minded 
people  nowadays  treat  opinions,  as  all  amounting  to  the 
same  thing  really — a  years-smoothed  boyish  rather  than 
an  adult  hand.  And  it  filled  seven  sheets  of  notepaper, 
each  written  only  on  one  side. 


"Mv  DEAR  Miss  STANLEY,"  it  began, — "7  hope  you 
will  forgive  my  bothering  you  with  a  letter,  but  I  have  been 
thinking  very  much  over  our  conversation  at  Lady  Pals- 
worthy's,  and  I  feel  there  are  things  I  want  to  say  to  you 
so  much  that  I  cannot  wait  until  we  meet  again.  It  is  the 
worst  of  talk  under  such  social  circumstances  that  it  is 
always  getting  cut  off  so  soon  as  it  is  beginning;  and  I 
went  home  that  afternoon  feeling  I  had  said  nothing — 
literally  nothing — of  the  things  I  had  meant  to  say  to  you 
and  that  were  coursing  through  my  head.  They  were 
things  I  had  meant  very  much  to  talk  to  you  about,  so  that 
I  went  home  vexed  and  disappointed,  and  only  relieved 
myself  a  little  by  writing  a  few  verses.  I  wonder  if  you 
will  mind  very  much  when  I  tell  you  they  were  suggested  by 
you.  You  must  forgive  the  poet's  license  I  take.  Here 
is  one  verse.  The  metrical  irregularity  is  intentional, 
because  I  want,  as  it  were,  to  put  you  apart:  to  change 
the  lilt  and  the  mood  altogether  when  I  speak  of 
you. 

55 


ANN    VERONICA 

"'A   SONG  OF  LADIES  AND  MY  LADY 

"'Saintly  white  and  a  lily  is  Mary, 

Margaret's  violets,  sweet  and  shy; 
Green  and  dewy  is  Nellie -bud  fairy, 

Forget-me-nots  live  in  Gwendolen's  eye. 
Annabel  shines  like  a  star  in  the  darkness, 

Rosamund  queens  it  a  rose,  deep  rose; 
But  the  lady  I  love  is  like  sunshine  in  April  weather, 

She  gleams  and  gladdens,  she  warms — and  goes.' 

Crude,  I  admit.  But  let  that  verse  tell  my  secret.  All 
bad  verse — originally  the  epigram  was  Lang's,  I  believe — 
is  written  in  a  state  of  emotion. 

"  My  dear  Miss  Stanley,  when  I  talked  to  you  the  other 
afternoon  of  work  and  politics  and  such- like  things,  my 
mind  was  all  the  time  resenting  it  beyond  measure.  There 
we  were  discussing  whether  you  should  have  a  vote,  and  I 
remembered  the  last  occasion  we  met  it  was  about  your 
prospects  of  success  in  the  medical  profession  or  as  a 
Government  official  such  as  a  number  of  women  now  are, 
and  all  the  time  my  heart  was  crying  out  within  me, 
'Here  is  the  Queen  of  your  career.'  I  wanted,  as  I  have 
never  wanted  before,  to  take  you  up,  to  make  you  mine,  to 
carry  you  off  and  set  you  apart  from  all  the  strain  and  tur- 
moil of  life.  For  nothing  will  ever  convince  me  that  it  is 
not  the  man's  share  in  life  to  shield,  to  protect,  to  lead  and 
toil  and  watch  and  battle  with  the  world  at  large.  I  want 
to  be  your  knight,  your  servant,  your  protector,  your — / 
dare  scarcely  write  the  word — your  husband.  So  I  come 
suppliant.  I  am  five-and-thirty,  and  I  have  knocked  about 
in  the  world  and  tasted  the  quality  of  life.  I  had  a  hard 

56 


THE    MORNING    OF    THE    CRISIS 

fight  to  begin  with  to  win  my  way  into  the  Upper  Division 
— /  was  third  on  a  list  of  forty-seven — and  since  then  I 
have  found  myself  promoted  almost  yearly  in  a  widening 
sphere  of  social  service.  Before  I  met  you  I  never  met  any 
one  whom  I  felt  I  could  love,  but  you  have  discovered 
depths  in  my  own  nature  I  had  scarcely  suspected.  Ex- 
cept for  a  few  early  ebullitions  of  passion,  natural  to  a 
warm  and  romantic  disposition,  and  leaving  no  harmful 
after-effects — ebullitions  that  by  the  standards  of  the  higher 
truth  I  feel  no  one  can  justly  cast  a  stone  at,  and  of  which 
I  for  one  am  by  no  means  ashamed — I  come  to  you  a  pure 
and  unencumbered  man.  I  love  you.  In  addition  to  my 
public  salary  I  have  a  certain  private  property  and  further 
expectations  through  my  aunt,  so  that  I  can  offer  you  a  life 
of  wide  and  generous  refinement,  travel,  books,  discussion, 
and  easy  relations  with  a  circle  of  clever  and  brilliant  and 
thoughtful  people  with  whom  my  literary  work  has  brought 
me  into  contact,  and  of  which,  seeing  me  only  as  you  have 
done  alone  in  Morningside  Park,  you  can  have  no  idea. 
I  have  a  certain  standing  not  only  as  a  singer  but  as  a 
critic,  and  I  belong  to  one  of  the  most  brilliant  causer  ie 
dinner  clubs  of  the  day,  in  which  successful  Bohemianism,} 
politicians,  men  of  affairs,  artists,  sculptors,  and  culti- 
vated noblemen  generally,  mingle  together  in  the  easiest 
and  most  delightful  intercourse.  That  is  my  real  milieu, 
and  one  that  I  am  convinced  you  would  not  only  adorn 
but  delight  in. 

"I  find  it  very  hard  to  write  this  letter.  There  are  so 
many  things  I  want  to  tell  you,  and  they  stand  on  such 
different  levels,  that  the  effect  is  necessarily  confusing  and 
discordant,  and  I  find  myself  doubting  if  I  am  really  giving 
you  the  thread  of  emotion  that  should  run  through  all  this 

57 


ANN    VERONICA 

letter.  For  although  I  must  confess  it  reads  very  much 
like  an  application  or  a  testimonial  or  some  such  thing 
as  that,  I  can  assure  you  I  am  writing  this  in  fear  and 
trembling  with  a  sinking  heart.  My  mind  is  full  of  ideas 
and  images  that  I  have  been  cherishing  and  accumulating 
— dreams  of  travelling  side  by  side,  of  lunching  quietly 
together  in  some  jolly  restaurant,  of  moonlight  and  music 
and  all  that  side  of  life,  of  seeing  you  dressed  like  a  queen 
and  shining  in  some  brilliant  throng — mine;  of  your  look- 
ing at  ftowers  in  some  old-world  garden,  our  garden — 
there  are  splendid  places  to  be  got  down  in  Surrey,  and  a 
little  runabout  motor  is  quite  within  my  means.  You 
know  they  say,  as,  indeed,  I  have  just  quoted  already,  that 
all  bad  poetry  is  written  in  a  state  of  emotion,  but  I  have 
no  doubt  that  this  is  true  of  bad  offers  of  marriage.  I 
have  often  felt  before  that  it  is  only  when  one  has  nothing 
to  say  that  one  can  write  easy  poetry.  Witness  Browning. 
And  how  can  I  get  into  one  brief  letter  the  complex  accumu- 
lated desires  of  what  is  now,  I  find  on  reference  to  my  diary, 
nearly  sixteen  months  of  letting  my  mind  run  on  you — 
ever  since  that  jolly  party  at  Surbiton,  where  we  raced  and 
beat  the  other  boat.  You  steered  and  I  rowed  stroke.  My 
very  sentences  stumble  and  give  way.  But  I  do  not  even 
care  if  I  am  absurd.  I  am  a  resolute  man,  and  hitherto 
when  I  have  wanted  a  thing  I  have  got  it;  but  I  have  never 
yet  wanted  anything  in  my  life  as  I  have  wanted  you.  It 
isn't  the  same  thing.  I  am  afraid  because  I  love  you,  so 
that  the  mere  thought  of  failure  hurts.  If  I  did  not  love 
you  so  much  I  believe  I  could  win  you  by  sheer  force  of 
character,  for  people  tell  me  I  am  naturally  of  the  dominat- 
ing type.  Most  of  my  successes  in  life  have  been  made 
with  a  sort  of  reckless  vigor. 

58 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

"Well,  I  have  said  what  I  had  to  say,  stumblingly  and 
badly,  and  baldly.  But  I  am  sick  of  tearing  up  letters  and 
hopeless  of  getting  what  I  have  to  say  better  said.  It  would 
be  easy  enough  for  me  to  write  an  eloquent  letter  about 
something  else.  Only  I  do  not  care  to  write  about  any- 
thing else.  Let  me  put  the  main  question  to  you  now  that 
I  could  not  put  the  other  afternoon.  Will  you  marry  me, 
Ann  Veronica?  Very  sincerely  yours, 

"HUBERT  MANNING." 

Ann  Veronica  read  this  letter  through  with  grave, 
attentive  eyes.  Her  interest  grew  as  she  read,  a  certain 
distaste  disappeared.  Twice  she  smiled,  but  not  un- 
kindly, Then  she  went  back  and  mixed  up  the  sheets 
in  a  search  for  particular  passages.  Finally  she  fell 
into  reflection. 

"Odd!"  she  said.  "I  suppose  I  shall  have  to  write 
an  answer.  It's  so  different  from  what  one  has  been 
led  to  expect." 

She  became  aware  of  her  aunt,  through  the  panes 
of  the  greenhouse,  advancing  with  an  air  of  serene 
unconsciousness  from  among  the  raspberry  canes. 

"No  you  don't!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  walked 
out  at  a  brisk  and  business-like  pace  toward  the  house. 

"I'm  going  for  a  long  tramp,  auntie,"  she  said. 

"Alone,  dear?" 

"  Yes,  aunt.     I've  got  a  lot  of  things  to  think  about." 

Miss  Stanley  reflected  as  Ann  Veronica  went  toward 
the  house.  She  thought  her  niece  very  hard  and  very 
self-possessed  and  self-confident.  She  ought  to  be 
softened  and  tender  and  confidential  at  this  phase  of 
her  life.  She  seemed  to  have  no  idea  whatever  of  the 
s  59 


ANN    VERONICA, 

emotional  states  that  were  becoming  to  her  age  and 
position:  Miss  Stanley  walked  round  the  garden  think- 
ing, and  presently  house  and  garden  reverberated  to 
Ann  Veronica's  slamming  of  the  front  door. 

"I  wonder!"  said  Miss  Stanley. 

For  a  long  time  she  surveyed  a  row  of  towering  holly- 
hocks, as  though  they  offered  an  explanation.  Then 
she  went  in  and  up-stairs,  hesitated  on  the  landing,  and 
finally,  a  little  breathless  and  with  an  air  of  great  dignity, 
opened  the  door  and  walked  into  Ann  Veronica's  room. 
It  was  a  neat,  efficient-looking  room,  with  a  writing- 
table  placed  with  a  business-like  regard  to  the  window, 
and  a  bookcase  surmounted  by  a  pig's  skull,  a  dissected 
frog  in  a  sealed  bottle,  and  a  pile  of  shiny,  black-covered 
note-books.  In  the  corner  of  the  room  were  two 
hockey-sticks  and  a  tennis-racket,  and  upon  the  walls 
Ann  Veronica,  by  means  of  autotypes,  had  indicated 
her  proclivities  in  art.  But  Miss  Stanley  took  no 
notice  of  these  things.  She  walked  straight  across  to 
the  wardrobe  and  opened  it.  There,  hanging  among 
Ann  Veronica's  more  normal  clothing,  was  a  skimpy 
dress  of  red  canvas,  trimmed  with  cheap  and  tawdry 
braid,  and  short — it  could  hardly  reach  below  the  knee. 
On  the  same  peg  and  evidently  belonging  to  it  was  a 
black  velvet  Zouave  jacket.  And  then!  a  garment  that 
was  conceivably  a  secondary  skirt. 

Miss  Stanley  hesitated,  and  took  first  one  and  then 
another  of  the  constituents  of  this  costume  off  its  peg 
and  surveyed  it. 

The  third  item  she  took  with  a  trembling  hand  by 
its  waistbelt.  As  she  raised  it,  its  lower  portion  fell 
apart  into  two  baggy  crimson  masses. 

60 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

"Trousers!"  she  whispered. 

Her  eyes  travelled  about  the  room  as  if  in  appeal 
to  the  very  chairs. 

Tucked  under  the  writing-table  a  pair  of  yellow 
and  gold  Turkish  slippers  of  a  highly  meretricious 
quality  caught  her  eye.  She  walked  over  to  them, 
still  carrying  the  trousers  in  her  hands,  and  stooped 
to  examine  them.  They  were  ingenious  disguises 
of  gilt  paper  destructively  gummed,  it  would  seem, 
to  Ann  Veronicas'  best  dancing-slippers. 

Then  she  reverted  to  the  trousers. 

"How  can  I  tell  him?"  whispered  Miss  Stanley. 


§    2 

Ann  Veronica  carried  a  light  but  business-like  walking- 
stick.  She  walked  with  an  easy  quickness  down  the 
Avenue  and  through  the  proletarian  portion  of  Morning- 
side  Park,  and  crossing  these  fields  came  into  a  pretty 
overhung  lane  that  led  toward  Caddington  and  the 
Downs.  And  then  her  pace  slackened.  She  tucked 
her  stick  under  her  arm  and  re-read  Manning's  letter. 

"Let  me  think,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"I  wish  this  hadn't  turned  up  to-day  of  all  days." 

She  found  it  difficult  to  begin  thinking,  and  indeed 
she  was  anything  but  clear  what  it  was  she  had  to  think 
about.  Practically  it  was  most  of  the  chief  interests 
in  life  that  she  proposed  to  settle  in  this  pedestrian 
meditation.  Primarily  it  was  her  own  problem,  and  in 
particular  the  answer  she  had  to  give  to  Mr.  Manning's 
letter,  but  in  order  to  get  data  for  that  she  found  that  she, 

61 


ANN    VERONICA 

having  a  logical  and  ordered  mind,  had  to  decide  upon 
the  general  relations  of  men  to  women,  the  objects  and 
conditions  of  marriage  and  its  bearing  upon  the  welfare 
of  the  race,  the  purpose  of  the  race,  the  purpose,  if  any, 
of  everything.  .  .  . 

"Frightful  lot  of  things  aren't  settled,"  said  Ann 
Veronica. 

In  addition,  the  Fadden  Dance  business,  all  out  of  pro- 
portion, occupied  the  whole  foreground  of  her  thoughts 
and  threw  a  color  of  rebellion  over  everything.  She 
kept  thinking  she  was  thinking  about  Mr.  Manning's 
proposal  of  marriage  and  finding  she  was  thinking  of 
the  dance. 

For  a  time  her  efforts  to  achieve  a  comprehensive 
concentration  were  dispersed  by  the  passage  of  the 
village  street  of  Caddington,  the  passing  of  a  goggled 
car-load  of  motorists,  and  the  struggles  of  a  stable 
lad  mounted  on  one  recalcitrant  horse  and  leading 
another.  When  she  got  back  to  her  questions  again 
in  the  monotonous  high-road  that  led  up  the  hill,  she 
found  the  image  of  Mr.  Manning  central  in  her  mind. 
He  stood  there,  large  and  dark,  enunciating,  in  his 
clear  voice  from  beneath  his  large  mustache,  clear  flat 
sentences,  deliberately  kindly.  He  proposed,  he  wanted 
to  possess  her!  He  loved  her. 

Ann  Veronica  felt  no  repulsion  at  the  prospect. 
That  Mr.  Manning  loved  her  presented  itself  to  her 
bloodlessly,  stilled  from  any  imaginative  quiver  or 
thrill  of  passion  or  disgust.  The  relationship  seemed 
to  have  almost  as  much  to  do  with  blood  and  body 
as  a  mortgage.  It  was  something  that  would  create 
a  mutual  claim,  a  relationship.  It  was  in  another 

62 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

world  from  that  in  which  men  will  die  for  a  kiss,  and 
touching  hands  lights  fires  that  burn  up  lives — the  world 
of  romance,  the  world  of  passionately  beautiful  things. 

But  that  other  world,  in  spite  of  her  resolute  exclusion 
of  it,  was  always  looking  round  corners  and  peeping 
through  chinks  and  crannies,  and  rustling  and  raiding 
into  the  order  in  which  she  chose  to  live,  shining  out 
of  pictures  at  her,  echoing  in  lyrics  and  music ;  it  invaded 
her  dreams,  it  wrote  up  broken  and  enigmatical  sentences 
upon  the  passage  walls  of  her  mind.  She  was  aware  of 
it  now  as  if  it  were  a  voice  shouting  outside  a  house, 
shouting  passionate  verities  in  a  hot  sunlight,  a  voice 
that  cries  while  people  talk  insincerely  in  a  darkened 
room  and  pretend  not  to  heajrT)  Its  shouting  now  did 
in  some  occult  manner  convey  a  protest  that  Mr.  Manning 
would  on  no  account  do,  though  he  was  tall  and  dark 
and  handsome  and  kind,  and  thirty-five  and  adequately 
prosperous,  and  all  that  a  husband  should  be.  But 
there  was,  it  insisted,  no  mobility  in  his  face,  no  move- 
ment, nothing  about  him  that  warmed.  If  Ann  Veronica 
could  have  put  words  to  that  song  they  wrould  have 
been,  "Hot-blooded  marriage  or  none!"  but  she  was  far 
too  indistinct  in  this  matter  to  frame  any  words  at  all. 

"I  don't  love  him,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  getting 
a  gleam.  "  I  don't  see  that  his  being  a  good  sort  matters. 
That  really  settles  about  that.  .  .  .  But  it  means  no  end 
of  a  row." 

For  a  time  she  sat  on  a  rail  before  leaving  the  road 
for  the  downland  turf.  "  But  I  wish,"  she  said,  "  I  had 
some  idea  what  I  was  really  up  to." 

Her  thoughts  went  into  solution  for  a  time,  while 
she  listened  to  a  lark  singing. 

63 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Marriage  and  mothering,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with 
her  mind  crystallizing  out  again  as  the  lark  dropped  to 
the  nest  in  the  turf.  "  And  all  the  rest  of  it  perhaps  is  a 
song." 

§3 

Her  mind  got  back  to  the  Fadden  Ball. 

She  meant  to  go,  she  meant  to  go,  she  meant  to  go. 
Nothing  would  stop  her,  and  she  was  prepared  to  face 
the  consequences.  Suppose  her  father  turned  her  out  of 
doors!  She  did  not  care,  she  meant  to  go.  She  would 
just  walk  out  of  the  house  and  go.  ... 

She  thought  of  her  costume  in  some  detail  and  with 
considerable  satisfaction,  and  particularly  of  a  very 
jolly  property  dagger  with  large  glass  jewels  in  the 
handle,  that  reposed  in  a  drawer  in  her  room.  She  was 
to  be  a  Corsair's  Bride.  "Fancy  stabbing  a  man  for 
jealousy!"  she  thought.  "You'd  have  to  think  how  to 
get  in  between  his  bones." 

She  thought  of  her  father,  and  with  an  effort  dis- 
missed him  from  her  mind. 

She  tried  to  imagine  the  collective  effect  of  the  Fadden 
Ball;  she  had  never  seen  a  fancy-dress  gathering  in  her 
life.  Mr.  Manning  came  into  her  thoughts  again,  an 
unexpected,  tall,  dark,  self-contained  presence  at  the 
Fadden.  One  might  suppose  him  turning  up;  he  knew 
a  lot  of  clever  people,  and  some  of  them  might  belong  to 
the  class.  What  would  he  come  as  ? 

Presently  she  roused  herself  with  a  guilty  start  from 
the  task  of  dressing  and  re-dressing  Mr.  Manning  in  fancy 
costume,  as  though  he  was  a  doll.  She  had  tried  him 

64 


THE    MORNING    OF   THE   CRISIS 

as  a  Crusader,  in  which  guise  he  seemed  plausible  but 
heavy — "  There  is  something  heavy  about  him;  I  wonder 
if  it's  his  mustache?" — and  as  a  Hussar,  which  made 
him  preposterous,  and  as  a  Black  Brunswicker,  which 
was  better,  and  as  an  Arab  sheik.  Also  she  had  tried 
him  as  a  dragoman  and  as  a  gendarme,  which  seemed  the 
most  suitable  of  all  to  his  severely  handsome,  immobile 
profile.  She  felt  he  would  tell  people  the  way,  control 
traffic,  and  refuse  admission  to  public  buildings  with  in- 
vincible correctness  and  the  very  finest  explicit  feelings 
possible.  For  each  costume  she  had  devised  a  suitable 
form  of  matrimonial  refusal.  "Oh,  Lord!"  she  said,  dis- 
covering what  she  was  up  to,  and  dropped  lightly  from 
the  fence  upon  the  turf  and  went  on  her  way  toward 
the  crest. 

"  I  shall  never  marry,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  resolutely; 
"I'm  not  the  sort.  That's  why  it's  so  important  I 
should  take  my  own  line  now." 


§4 

Ann  Veronica's  ideas  of  marriage  were  limited  and 
unsystematic.  Her  teachers  and  mistresses  had  done 
their  best  to  stamp  her  mind  with  an  ineradicable  per- 
suasion that  it  was  tremendously  important,  and  on  no 
account  to  be  thought  about.  Her  first  intimations  of 
marriage  as  a  fact  of  extreme  significance  in  a  woman's 
life  had  come  with  the  marriage  of  Alice  and  the  elope- 
ment of  her  second  sister,  Gwen. 

These  convulsions  occurred  when  Ann  Veronica  was 
about  twelve.  There  was  a  gulf  of  eight  years  between 

65 


ANN    VERONICA 

her  and  the  youngest  of  her  brace  of  sisters — an  impass- 
able gulf  inhabited  chaotically  by  two  noisy  brothers. 
These  sisters  moved  in  a  grown-up  world  inaccessible  to 
Ann  Veronica's  sympathies,  and  to  a  large  extent  remote 
from  her  curiosity.  She  got  into  rows  through  meddling 
with  their  shoes  and  tennis-rackets,  and  had  moments  of 
carefully  concealed  admiration  when  she  was  privileged 
to  see  them  just  before  her  bedtime,  rather  radiantly 
dressed  in  white  or  pink  or  amber  and  prepared  to  go  out 
with  her  mother.  She  thought  Alice  a  bit  of  a  sneak, 
an  opinion  her  brothers  shared,  and  Gwen  rather  a 
snatch  at  meals.  She  saw  nothing  of  their  love-making, 
and  came  home  from  her  boarding-school  in  a  state  of 
decently  suppressed  curiosity  for  Alice's  wedding. 

Her  impressions  of  this  cardinal  ceremony  were  rich 
and  confused,  complicated  by  a  quite  transitory  passion 
that  awakened  no  reciprocal  fire  for  a  fat  curly  headed 
cousin  in  black  velveteen  and  a  lace  collar,  who  assisted 
as  a  page.  She  followed  him  about  persistently,  and 
succeeded,  after  a  brisk,  unchivalrous  struggle  (in  which 
he  pinched  and  asked  her  to  "cheese  it"),  in  kissing  him 
among  the  raspberries  behind  the  greenhouse.  After- 
ward her  brother  Roddy,  also  strange  in  velveteen,  feel- 
ing rather  than  knowing  of  this  relationship,  punched 
this  Adonis's  head. 

A  marriage  in  the  house  proved  to  be  exciting  but  ex- 
tremely disorganizing.  Everything  seemed  designed 
to  unhinge  the  mind  and  make  the  cat  wretched.  All 
the  furniture  was  moved,  all  the  meals  were  disarranged, 
and  everybody,  Ann  Veronica  included,  appeared  in  new, 
bright  costumes.  She  had  to  wear  cream  and  a  brown 
sash  and  a  short  frock  and  her  hair  down,  and  Gwen 

66 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

cream  and  a  brown  sash  and  a  long  skirt  and  her  hair  up. 
And  her  mother,  looking  unusually  alert  and  hectic, 
wore  cream  and  brown  also,  made  up  in  a  more  com- 
plicated manner. 

Ann  Veronica  was  much  impressed  by  a  mighty  try- 
ing on  and  altering  and  fussing  about  Alice's  " things" 
— Alice  was  being  re-costumed  from  garret  to  cellar, 
with  a  walking-dress  and  walking-boots  to  measure,  and 
a  bride's  costume  of  the  most  ravishing  description, 
and  stockings  and  such  like  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice 
— and  a  constant  and  increasing  dripping  into  the  house 
of  irrelevant  remarkable  objects,  such  as — 

Real  lace  bedspread; 

Gilt  travelling  clock; 

Ornamental  pewter  plaque; 

Salad  bowl  (silver  mounted)  and  servers ; 

Madgett's  "English  Poets"  (twelve  volumes),  bound 
purple  morocco; 

Etc.,  etc. 

Through  all  this  nutter  of  novelty  there  came  and 
went  a  solicitous,  preoccupied,  almost  depressed  figure. 
It  was  Doctor  Ralph,  formerly  the  partner  of  Doctor 
Stickell  in  the  Avenue,  and  now  with  a  thriving  practice 
of  his  own  in  Wamblesmith.  He  had  shaved  his  side- 
whiskers  and  come  over  in  flannels,  but  he  was  still  in- 
disputably the  same  person  who  had  attended  Ann 
Veronica  for  the  measles  and  when  sfye  swallowed  the 
fish-bone.  But  his  rdle  was  altered,  and  he  was  now 
playing  the  bridegroom  in  this  remarkable  drama. 
Alice  was  going  to  be  Mrs.  Ralph.  He  came  in  apolo- 
getically; all  the  old  "  Well,  and  how  are  we  ?"  note  gone; 
and  once  he  asked  Ann  Veronica,  almost  furtively, 


ANN    VERONICA 

"How's  Alice  getting  on,  Vee?"  Finally,  on  the  Day, 
he  appeared  like  his  old  professional  self  transfigured,  in 
the  most  beautiful  light  gray  trousers  Ann  Veronica  had 
ever  seen  and  a  new  shiny  silk  hat  with  a  most  becoming 
roll.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  simply  that  all  the  rooms  were  rearranged 
and  everybody  dressed  in  unusual  fashions,  and  all  the 
routines  of  life  abolished  and  put  away:  people's  tempers 
and  emotions  also  seemed  strangely  disturbed  and  shifted 
about.  Her  father  was  distinctly  irascible,  and  disposed 
more  than  ever  to  hide  away  among  the  petrological 
things — the  study  was  turned  out.  At  table  he  carved 
in  a  gloomy  but  resolute  manner.  On  the  Day  he  had 
trumpet-like  outbreaks  of  cordiality,  varied  by  a  watch- 
ful preoccupation.  Gwen  and  Alice  were  fantastically 
friendly,  which  seemed  to  annoy  him,  and  Mrs.  Stanley 
was  throughout  enigmatical,  with  an  anxious  eye  on  her 
husband  and  Alice. 

There  was  a  confused  impression  of  livery  carriages 
and  whips  with  white  favors,  people  fussily  wanting 
other  people  to  get  in  before  them,  and  then  the  church. 
People  sat  in  unusual  pews,  and  a  wide  margin  of 
hassocky  emptiness  intervened  between  the  ceremony 
and  the  walls. 

Ann  Veronica  had  a  number  of  fragmentary  impres- 
sions of  Alice  strangely  transfigured  in  bridal  raiment. 
It  seemed  to  make  her  sister  downcast  beyond  any 
precedent.  The  bridesmaids  and  pages  got  rather 
jumbled  in  the  aisle,  and  she  had  an  effect  of  Alice's 
white  back  and  sloping  shoulders  and  veiled  head  re- 
ceding toward  the  altar.  In  some  incomprehensible 
way  that  back  view  made  her  feel  sorry  for  Alice.  Also 

68 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

she  remembered  very  vividly  the  smell  of  orange  blossom, 
and  Alice,  drooping  and  spiritless,  mumbling  responses, 
facing  Doctor  Ralph,  while  the  Rev.  Edward  Bribble 
stood  between  them  with  an  open  book.  Doctor  Ralph 
looked  kind  and  large,  and  listened  to  Alice's  responses 
as  though  he  was  listening  to  symptoms  and  thought 
that  on  the  whole  she  was  progressing  favorably. 

And  afterward  her  mother  and  Alice  kissed  long  and 
clung  to  each  other.  And  Doctor  Ralph  stood  by  look- 
ing considerate.  He  and  her  father  shook  hands  man- 
fully. 

Ann  Veronica  had  got  quite  interested  in  Mr.  Bribble's 
rendering  of  the  service — he  had  the  sort  of  voice  that 
brings  out  things — and  was  still  teeming  with  ideas 
about  it  when  finally  a  wild  outburst  from  the  organ  made 
it  clear  that,  whatever  snivelling  there  might  be  down 
in  the  chancel,  that  excellent  wind  instrument  was,  in 
its  Mendelssohnian  way,  as  glad  as  ever  it  could  be. 
"Pump,  pump,  per-um-pump,  Pum,  Pump,  Per-um.  . . ." 

The  wedding-breakfast  was  for  Ann  Veronica  a 
spectacle  of  the  unreal  consuming  the  real;  she  liked 
that  part  very  well,  until  she  was  carelessly  served 
against  her  expressed  wishes  with  mayonnaise.  She 
was  caught  by  an  uncle,  whose  opinion  she  valued, 
making  faces  at  Roddy  because  he  had  exulted  at 
this. 

Of  the  vast  mass  of  these  impressions  Ann  Veronica 
could  make  nothing  at  the  time ;  there  they  were — Fact ! 
She  stored  them  away  in  a  mind  naturally  retentive,  as  a 
squirrel  stores  away  nuts,  for  further  digestion.  Only 
one  thing  emerged  with  any  reasonable  clarity  in  her 
mind  at  once,  and  that  was  that  unless  she  was  saved 


ANN    VERONICA 

from  drowning  by  an  unmarried  man,  in  which  case  the 
ceremony  is  unavoidable,  or  totally  destitute  of  under- 
clothing, and  so  driven  to  get  a  trousseau,  in  which 
hardship  a  trousseau  would  certainly  be  "ripping," 
marriage  was  an  experience  to  be  strenuously  evaded. 

When  they  were  going  home  she  asked  her  mother 
why  she  and  Gwen  and  Alice  had  cried. 

"Ssh!"  said  her  mother,  and  then  added,  "A  little 
natural  feeling,  dear." 

"But  didn't  Alice  want  to  marry  Doctor  Ralph?" 

"Oh,  ssh,  Vee!"  said  her  mother,  with  an  evasion 
as  patent  as  an  advertisement  board.  "I  am  sure  she 
will  be  very  happy  indeed  with  Doctor  Ralph." 

But  Ann  Veronica  was  by  no  means  sure  of  that  until 
she  went  over  to  Wamblesmith  and  saw  her  sister,  very 
remote  and  domestic  and  authoritative,  in  a  becoming 
tea-gown,  in  command  of  Doctor  Ralph's  home.  Doctor 
Ralph  came  in  to  tea  and  put  his  arm  round  Alice  and 
kissed  her,  and  Alice  called  him  "Squiggles,"  and  stood 
in  the  shelter  of  his  arms  for  a  moment  with  an  ex- 
pression of  satisfied  proprietorship.  She  had  cried,  Ann 
Veronica  knew.  There  had  been  fusses  and  scenes 
dimly  apprehended  through  half-open  doors.  She  had 
heard  Alice  talking  and  crying  at  the  same  time,  a  pain- 
ful noise.  Perhaps  marriage  hurt.  But  now  it  was 
all  over,  and  Alice  was  getting  on  well.  It  reminded 
Ann  Veronica  of  having  a  tooth  stopped. 

And  after  that  Alice  became  remoter  than  ever,  and, 
after  a  time,  ill.  Then  she  had  a  baby  and  became  as 
old  as  any  really  grown-up  person,  or  older,  and  very 
dull.  Then  she  and  her  husband  went  off  to  a  Yorkshire 
practice,  and  had  four  more  babies,  none  of  whom 

70 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

photographed  well,  and  so  she  passed  beyond  the  sphere 
of  Ann  Veronica's  sympathies  altogether. 


5  5 

The  C*wen  affair  happened  when  she  was  away  at 
school  at  Marticombe-on-Sea,  a  term  before  she  went  to 
the  High  School,  and  was  never  very  clear  to  her. 

Her  mother  missed  writing  for  a  week,  and  then  she 
wrote  in  an  unusual  key.  "My  dear,"  the  letter  ran, 
"I  have  to  tell  you  that  your  sister  Gwen  has  offended 
your  father  very  much.  I  hope  you  will  always  love  her, 
but  I  want  you  to  remember  she  has  offended  your 
father  and  married  without  his  consent.  Your  father  is 
very  angry,  and  will  not  have  her  name  mentioned  in  his 
hearing.  She  has  married  some  one  he  could  not  ap- 
prove of,  and  gone  right  away.  ..." 

When  the  next  holidays  came  Ann  Veronica's  mother 
was  ill,  and  Gwen  was  in  the  sick-room  when  Ann 
Veronica  returned  home.  She  was  in  one  of  her  old 
walking-dresses,  her  hair  was  done  in  an  unfamiliar 
manner,  she  wore  a  wedding-ring,  and  she  looked  as  if 
she  had  been  crying. 

"Hello,  Gwen!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  trying  to  put 
every  one  at  their  ease.  "Been  and  married?  .  .  . 
What's  the  name  of  the  happy  man?" 

Gwen  owned  to  "Fortescue." 

"Got  a  photograph  of  him  or  anything?"  said  Ann 
Veronica,  after  kissing  her  mother. 

Gwen  made  an  inquiry,  and,  directed  by  Mrs.  Stanley, 
produced  a  portrait  from  its  hiding-place  in  the  jewel- 


ANN    VERONICA 

drawer  under  the  mirror.  It  presented  a  clean-shaven 
face  with  a  large  Corinthian  nose,  hair  tremendously 
waving  off  the  forehead,  and  more  chin  and  neck  than 
is  good  for  a  man. 

"Looks  all  right,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  regarding  him 
with  her  head  first  on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other, 
and  trying  to  be  agreeable.  "What's  the  objection ?" 

"I  suppose  she  ought  to  know?"  said  Gwen  to  her 
mother,  trying  to  alter  the  key  of  the  conversation. 

"You  see,  Vee,"  said  Mrs.  Stanley,  "Mr.  Fortescue 
is  an  actor,  and  your  father  does  not  approve  of  the 
profession." 

"Oh!"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "I  thought  they  made 
knights  of  actors?" 

"They  may  of  Hal  some  day,"  said  Gwen.  "  But  it's 
a  long  business." 

"I  suppose  this  makes  you  an  actress?"  said  Ann 
Veronica. 

"I  don't  know  whether  I  shall  go  on,"  said  Gwen, 
a  novel  note  of  languorous  professionalism  creeping 
into  her  voice.  "The  other  women  don't  much  like 
it  if  husband  and  wife  work  together,  and  I  don't  think 
Hal  would  like  me  to  act  away  from  him." 

Ann  Veronica  regarded  her  sister  with  a  new  respect, 
but  the  traditions  of  family  life  are  strong.  "I  don't 
suppose  you'll  be  able  to  do  it  much,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

Later  Gwen's  trouble  weighed  so  heavily  on  Mrs. 
Stanley  in  her  illness  that  her  husband  consented  to 
receive  Mr.  Fortescue  in  the  drawing-room,  and  actually 
shake  hands  with  him  in  an  entirely  hopeless  manner 
and  hope  everything  would  turn  out  for  the  best. 

The  forgiveness  and  reconciliation  was  a  cold  and 

72 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE    CRISIS 

formal  affair,  and  afterwards  her  father  went  off  gloomily 
to  his  study,  and  Mr.  Fortescue  rambled  round  the 
garden  with  soft,  propitiatory  steps,  the  Corinthian 
nose  upraised  and  his  hands  behind  his  back,  pausing 
to  look  long  and  hard  at  the  fruit-trees  against  the  wall. 

Ann  Veronica  watched  him  from  the  dining-room 
window,  and  after  some  moments  of  maidenly  hesita- 
tion rambled  out  into  the  garden  in  a  reverse  direction 
to  Mr.  Fortescue's  steps,  and  encountered  him  with  an 
air  of  artless  surprise. 

"Hello!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  arms  akimbo  and 
a  careless,  breathless  manner.  "You  Mr.  Fortescue?" 

"At  your  service.     You  Ann  Veronica?" 

"Rather!     I  say — did  you  marry  Gwen?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

Mr.  Fortescue  raised  his  eyebrows  and  assumed  a 
light-comedy  expression.  "I  suppose  I  fell  in  love 
with  her,  Ann  Veronica." 

"Rum,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "Have  you  got  to 
keep  her  now?" 

"To  the  best  of  my  ability,"  said  Mr.  Fortescue, 
with  a  bow. 

"Have  you  much  ability?"  asked  Ann  Veronica. 

Mr.  Fortescue  tried  to  act  embarrassment  in  order 
to  conceal  its  reality,  and  Ann  Veronica  went  on  to 
ask  a  string  of  questions  about  acting,  and  whether 
her  sister  would  act,  and  was  she  beautiful  enough 
for  it,  and  who  would  make  her  dresses,  and  so  on. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Mr.  Fortescue  had  not  much 
ability  to  keep  her  sister,  and  a  little  while  after  her 
mother's  death  Ann  Veronica  met  Gwen  suddenly  on 

73 


ANN    VERONICA 

the  staircase  coming  from  her  father's  study,  shockingly 
dingy  in  dusty  mourning  and  tearful  and  resentful. 
And  after  that  Gwen  receded  from  the  Morningside  Park 
world,  and  not  even  the  begging  letters  and  distressful 
communications  that  her  father  and  aunt  received,  but 
only  a  vague  intimation  of  dreadfulness,  a  leakage  of  in- 
cidental comment,  flashes  of  paternal  anger  at  "that 
blackguard,"  came  to  Ann  Veronica's  ears. 


§6 

These  were  Ann  Veronica's  leading  cases  in  the 
question  of  marriage.  They  were  the  only  real  marriages 
she  had  seen  clearly.  For  the  rest,  she  derived  her 
ideas  of  the  married  state  from  the  observed  behavior 
of  married  women,  which  impressed  her  in  Morningside 
Park  as  being  tied  and  dull  and  inelastic  in  comparison 
with  the  life  of  the  young,  and  from  a  remarkably  various 
reading  among  books.  As  a  net  result  she  had  come  to 
think  of  all  married  people  much  as  one  thinks  of 
insects  that  have  lost  their  wings,  and  of  her  sisters  as 
new  hatched  creatures  who  had  scarcely  for  a  moment 
had  wings.  She  evolved  a  dim  image  of  herself  cooped 
up  in  a  house  under  the  benevolent  shadow  of  Mr. 
Manning.  Who  knows  ? — on  the  analogy  of  "  Squiggles  " 
she  might  come  to  call  him  "Mangles!" 

"I  don't  think  I  can  ever  marry  any  one,"  she  said, 
and  fell  suddenly  into  another  set  of  considerations 
that  perplexed  her  for  a  time.  Had  romance  to  be 
banished  from  life?  .  .  . 

It  was  hard  to  part  with  romance,  but  she  had  never 

74 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

thirsted  so  keenly  to  go  on  with  her  University  work 
in  her  life  as  she  did  that  day.  She  had  never  felt  so 
acutely  the  desire  for  free  initiative,  for  a  life  unhampered 
by  others.  At  any  cost !  Her  brothers  had  it  practically 
— at  least  they  had  it  far  more  than  it  seemed  likely 
she  would  unless  she  exerted  herself  with  quite  excep- 
tional vigor.  Between  her  and  the  fair,  far  prospect 
of  freedom  and  self -development  manoeuvred  Mr. 
Manning,  her  aunt  and  father,  neighbors,  customs, 
traditions,  forces.  They  seemed  to  her  that  morning 
to  be  all  armed  with  nets  and  prepared  to  throw  them 
over  her  directly  her  movements  became  in  any  manner 
truly  free. 

She  had  a  feeling  as  though  something  had  dropped 
from  her  eyes,  as  though  she  had  just  discovered  herself 
for  the  first  time — discovered  herself  as  a  sleep-walker 
might  do,  abruptly  among  dangers,  hindrances,  and 
perplexities,  on  the  verge  of  a  cardinal  crisis. 

The  life  of  a  girl  presented  itself  to  her  as  something 
happy  and  heedless  and  unthinking,  yet  really  guided 
and  controlled  by  others,  and  going  on  amidst  un- 
suspected screens  and  concealments.  And  in  its  way 
it  was  very  well.  Then  suddenly  with  a  rush  came 
reality,  came  "growing  up";  a  hasty  imperative  appeal 
for  seriousness,  for  supreme  seriousness.  The  Ralphs 
and  Mannings  and  Fortescues  came  down  upon  the  raw 
inexperience,  upon  the  blinking  ignorance  of  the  new- 
comer; and  before  her  eyes  were  fairly  open,  before  she 
knew  what  had  happened,  a  new  set  of  guides  and  con- 
trols, a  new  set  of  obligations  and  responsibilities  and 
limitations,  had  replaced  the  old.  "I  want  to  be  a 
Person,"  said  Ann  Veronica  to  the  downs  and  the  open 
6  75 


ANN    VERONICA 

sky;  "I  will  not  have  this  happen  to  me,  whatever  else 
may  happen  in  its  place." 

Ann  Veronica  had  three  things  very  definitely  settled 
by  the  time  when,  a  little  after  mid-day,  she  found 
herself  perched  up  on  a  gate  between  a  bridle-path 
and  a  field  that  commanded  the  whole  wide  stretch 
of  country  between  Chalking  and  Waldersham.  Firstly, 
she  did  not  intend  to  marry  at  all,  and  particularly 
she  did  not  mean  to  marry  Mr.  Manning;  secondly, 
by  some  measure  or  other,  she  meant  to  go  on  with  her 
studies,  not  at  the  Tredgold  Schools  but  at  the  Imperial 
College;  and,  thirdly,  she  was,  as  an  immediate  and 
decisive  act,  a  symbol  of  just  exactly  where  she  stood, 
a  declaration  of  free  and  adult  initiative,  going  that 
night  to  the  Fadden  Ball. 

But  the  possible  attitude  of  her  father  she  had  still  to 
face.  So  far.  she  had  the  utmost  difficulty  in  getting  on 
to  that  vitally  important  matter.  The  whole  of  that 
relationship  persisted  in  remaining  obscure.  What 
would  happen  when  next  morning  she  returned  to 
Morningside  Park? 

He  couldn't  turn  her  out  of  doors.  But  what  he 
could  do  or  might  do  she  could  not  imagine.  She 
was  not  afraid  of  violence,  but  she  was  afraid  of  some- 
thing mean,  some  secondary  kind  of  force.  Suppose 
he  stopped  all  her  allowance,  made  it  imperative  that 
she  should  either  stay  ineffectually  resentful  at  home 
or  earn  a  living  for  herself  at  once.  ...  It  appeared 
highly  probable  to  her  that  he  would  stop  her  allowance. 

What  can  a  girl  do? 

Somewhere  at  this  point  Ann  Veronica's  speculations 
were  interrupted  and  turned  aside  by  the  approach  of 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

A  horse  and  rider.  Mr.  Ramage,  that  iron-gray  man  of 
the  world,  appeared  dressed  in  a  bowler  hat  and  a  suit 
of  hard  gray,  astride  of  a  black  horse.  He  pulled  rein 
at  the  sight  of  her,  saluted,  and  regarded  her  with  his 
rather  too  protuberant  eyes.  The  girl's  gaze  met  his  in 
interested  inquiry. 

"You've  got  my  view,"  he  said,  after  a  pensive 
second.  "  I  always  get  off  here  and  lean  over  that  rail 
for  a  bit.  May  I  do  so  to-day?" 

"It's  your  gate,"  she  said,  amiably;  "you  got  it 
first.  It's  for  you  to  say  if  I  may  sit  on  it." 

He  slipped  off  the  horse.  "  Let  me  introduce  you  to 
Caesar,"  he  said;  and  she  patted  Caesar's  neck,  and 
remarked  how  soft  his  nose  was,  and  secretly  deplored 
the  ugliness  of  equine  teeth.  Ramage  tethered  the 
horse  to  the  farther  gate-post,  and  Caesar  blew  heavily 
and  began  to  investigate  the  hedge. 

Ramage  leaned  over  the  gate  at  Ann  Veronica's  side, 
and  for  a  moment  there  was  silence. 

He  made  some  obvious  comments  on  the  wide  view 
warming  toward  its  autumnal  blaze  that  spread  itself 
in  hill  and  valley,  wood  and  village,  below. 

"  It's  as  broad  as  life,"  said  Mr.  Ramage,  regarding 
it  and  putting  a  well-booted  foot  up  on  the  bottom 
rail. 

§  7 

"And  what  are  you  doing  here,  young  lady,"  he  said, 
looking  up  at  her  face,  "wandering  alone  so  far  from 
home?" 

"  I  like  long  walks,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  looking 
down  on  him. 

77 


ANN    VERONICA 

''Solitary  walks?" 

"That's  the  point  of  them.  I  think  over  all  sorts  of 
things." 

"Problems?" 

"Sometimes  quite  difficult  problems." 

"  You're  lucky  to  live  in  an  age  when  you  can  do  so. 
Your  mother,  for  instance,  couldn't.  She  had  to  do 
her  thinking  at  home — under  inspection." 

She  looked  down  on  him  thoughtfully,  and  he  let  his 
admiration  of  her  free  young  poise  show  in  his  face. 

"I  suppose  things  have  changed?"  she  said. 

"Never  was  such  an  age  of  transition." 

She  wondered  what  to.  Mr.  Ramage  did  not  know. 
"Sufficient  unto  me  is  the  change  thereof,"  he  said, 
with  all  the  effect  of  an  epigram. 

"I  must  confess,"  he  said,  "the  New  Woman  and  the 
New  Girl  intrigue  me  profoundly.  I  am  one  of  those 
people  who  are  interested  in  women,  more  interested 
than  I  am  in  anything  else.  I  don't  conceal  it.  And 
the  change,  the  change  of  attitude!  The  way  all  the 
old  clingingness  has  been  thrown  aside  is  amazing.  And 
all  the  old — the  old  trick  of  shrinking  up  like  a  snail  at 
a  touch.  If  you  had  lived  twenty  years  ago  you  would 
have  been  called  a  Young  Person,  and  it  would  have 
been  your  chief  duty  in  life  not  to  know,  never  to  have 
heard  of,  and  never  to  understand." 

"There's  quite  enough  still,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
smiling,  "that  one  doesn't  understand." 

"  Quite.  But  your  role  would  have  been  to  go  about 
saying,  'I  beg  your  pardon*  in  a  reproving  tone  to 
things  you  understood  quite  well  in  your  heart  and  saw 
no  harm  in.  That  terrible  Young  Person !  she's  vanished. 

78 


THE    MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

Lost,  stolen,  or  strayed,  the  Young  Person!  ...  I  hope 
we  may  never  find  her  again." 

He  rejoiced  over  this  emancipation.  "While  that 
lamb  was  about  every  man  of  any  spirit  was  regarded 
as  a  dangerous  wolf.  We  wore  invisible  chains  and  in- 
visible blinkers.  Now,  you  and  I  can  gossip  at  a  gate, 
and  Honi  soit  qui  mal  y  pense.  The  change  has  given 
man  one  good  thing  he  never  had  before,"  he  said. 
"  Girl  friends.  And  I  am  coming  to  believe  the  best  as 
well  as  the  most  beautiful  friends  a  man  can  have  are 
girl  friends." 

He  paused,  and  went  on,  after  a  keen  look  at  her: 

"I  had  rather  gossip  to  a  really  intelligent  girl  than 
to  any  man  alive." 

"I  suppose  we  are  more  free  than  we  were?"  said 
Ann  Veronica,  keeping  the  question  general. 

"Oh,  there's  no  doubt  of  it!  Since  the  girls  of  the 
eighties  broke  bounds  and  sailed  away  on  bicycles — my 
young  days  go  back  to  the  very  beginnings  of  that — it's 
been  one  triumphant  relaxation." 

"Relaxation,  perhaps.     But  are  we  any  more  free?" 

"Well?" 

"I  mean  we've  long  strings  to  tether  us,  but  we  are 
bound  all  the  same.  A  woman  isn't  much  freer — in 
reality." 

Mr.  Ramage  demurred. 

"One  runs  about,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"Yes." 

"  But  it's  on  condition  one  doesn't  do  anything." 

"Do  what?" 

"Oh!— anything." 

He  looked  interrogation  with  a  faint  smile. 

79 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  It  seems  to  me  it  comes  to  earning  one's  living  in  the 
long  run,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  coloring  faintly.  "  Until  a 
girl  can  go  away  as  a  son  does  and  earn  her  independent 
income,  she's  still  on  a  string.  It  may  be  a  long  string, 
long  enough  if  you  like  to  tangle  up  all  sorts  of  people; 
but  there  it  is!  If  the  paymaster  pulls,  home  she  must 
go.  That's  what  I  mean." 

Mr.  Ramage  admitted  the  force  of  that.  He  was  a 
little  impressed  by  Ann  Veronica's  metaphor  of  the 
string,  which,  indeed,  she  owed  to  Hetty  Widgett. 
"  You  wouldn't  like  to  be  independent?"  he  asked, 
abruptly.  "  I  mean  really  independent.  On  your  own. 
It  isn't  such  fun  as  it  seems." 

"Every  one  wants  to  be  independent,"  said  Ann 
Veronica.  "Every  one.  Man  or  woman." 

"And  you?" 

"Rather!" 

"I  wonder  why?" 

"  There's  no  why.  It's  just  to  feel — one  owns  one's 
self." 

"Nobody  does  that,"  said  Ramage,  and  kept  silence 
for  a  moment. 

"  But  a  boy — a  boy  goes  out  into  the  world  and  pres- 
ently stands  on  his  own  feet.  He  buys  his  own  clothes, 
chooses  his  own  company,  makes  his  own  way  of  living." 

"You'd  like  to  do  that?" 

"Exactly." 

"  Would  you  like  to  be  a  boy?" 

" I  wonder!     It's  out  of  the  question,  any  way." 

Ramage  reflected.     "Why  don't  you?" 

"Well,  it  might  mean  rather  a  row." 

"  I  know — "  said  Ramage,  with  sympathy. 

80 


THE    MORNING   OF    THE   CRISIS 

"And  besides,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  sweeping  that 
aspect  aside,  "what  could  I  do?  A  boy  sails  out  into 
a  trade  or  profession.  But — it's  one  of  the  things  I've 
just  been  thinking  over.  Suppose — suppose  a  girl  did 
want  to  start  in  life,  start  in  life  for  herself — "  She 
looked  him  frankly  in  the  eyes.  "What  ought  she  to 
do?" 

"Suppose  you — " 

"Yes,  suppose  I — " 

He  felt  that  his  advice  was  being  asked.  He  became 
a  little  more  personal  and  intimate.  "I  wonder  what 
you  could  do?"  he  said.  "I  should  think  you  could  do 
all  sorts  of  things.  .  .  . 

"What  ought  you  to  do?"  He  began  to  produce  his 
knowledge  of  the  world  for  her  benefit,  jerkily  and 
allusively,  and  with  a  strong,  rank  flavor  of  "savoir 
faire."  He  took  an  optimist  view  of  her  chances.  Ann 
Veronica  listened  thoughtfully,  with  her  eyes  on  the 
turf,  and  now  and  then  she  asked  a  question  or  looked 
up  to  discuss  a  point.  In  the  meanwhile,  as  he  talked,  he 
scrutinized  her  face,  ran  his  eyes  over  her  careless, 
gracious  poise,  wondered  hard  about  her.  He  described 
her  privately  to  himself  as  a  splendid  girl.  It  was  clear 
she  wanted  to  get  away  from  home,  that  she  was  im- 
patient to  get  away  from  home.  Why  ?  While  the  front 
of  his  mind  was  busy  warning  her  not  to  fall  into  the 
hopeless  miseries  of  underpaid  teaching,  and  explaining 
his  idea  that  for  women  of  initiative,  quite  as  much  as 
for  men,  the  world  of  business  had  by  far  the  best  chances, 
the  back  chambers  of  his  brain  were  busy  with  the 
problem  of  that  "Why?" 

His  first  idea  as  a  man  of  the  world  was  to  explain  her 

81 


ANN    VERONICA 

unrest  by  a  lover,  some  secret  or  forbidden  or  impossible 
lover.  But  he  dismissed  that  because  then  she  would 
ask  her  lover  and  not  him  all  these  things.  Restless- 
ness, then,  was  the  trouble,  simple  restlessness:  home 
bored  her.  He  could  quite  understand  the  daughter  of 
Mr.  Stanley  being  bored  and  feeling  limited.  But  was 
that  enough?  Dim,  formless  suspicions  of  something 
more  vital  wandered  about  his  mind.  Was  the  young 
lady  impatient  for  experience?  Was  she  adventurous? 
As  a  man  of  the  world  he  did  not  think  it  becoming  to 
accept  maidenly  calm  as  anything  more  than  a  mask. 
Warm  life  was  behind  that  always,  even  if  it  slept^  If 
it  was  not  an  actual  personal  lover,  it  still  might  be  the 
lover  not  yet  incarnate,  not  yet  perhaps  suspected.  .  .  . 
He  had  diverged  only  a  little  from  the  truth  when  he 
said  that  his  chief  interest  in  life  was  women.  It  wasn't 
so  much  women  as  Woman  that  engaged  his  mind.  His 
was  the  Latin  turn  of  thinking;  he  had  fallen  in  love  at 
thirteen,  and  he  was  still  capable — he  prided  himself — 
of  falling  in  love.  His  invalid  wife  and  her  money  had 
been  only  the  thin  thread  that  held  his  life  together; 
beaded  on  that  permanent  relation  had  been  an  inter- 
weaving series  of  other  feminine  experiences,  disturbing, 
absorbing,  interesting,  memorable  affairs.  Each  one 
had  been  different  from  the  others,  each  had  had  a 
quality  all  its  own,  a  distinctive  freshness,  a  distinctive 
beauty.  He  could  not  understand  how  men  could  live 
ignoring  this  one  predominant  interest,  this  wonderful 
research  into  personality  and  the  possibilities  of  pleasing, 
these  complex,  fascinating  expeditions  that  began  in 
interest  and  mounted  to  the  supremest,  most  passionate 
intimacy.  All  the  rest  of  his  existence  was  subordinate 

82 


THE   MORNING    OF    THE   CRISIS 

to  this  pursuit;  he  lived  for  it,  worked  for  it,  kept  him- 
self in  training  for  it. 

So  while  he  talked  to  this  girl  of  work  and  freedom,  his 
slightly  protuberant  eyes  were  noting  the  gracious 
balance  of  her  limbs  and  body  across  the  gate,  the  fine 
lines  of  her  chin  and  neck.  Her  grave  fine  face,  her 
warm  clear  complexion,  had  already  aroused  his  curiosity 
as  he  had  gone  to  and  fro  in  Morningside  Park,  and  here 
suddenly  he  was  near  to  her  and  talking  freely  and  in- 
timately. He  had  found  her  in  a  communicative  mood, 
and  he  used  the  accumulated  skill  of  years  in  turning 
that  to  account. 

She  was  pleased  and  a  little  flattered  by  his  interest 
and  sympathy.  She  became  eager  to  explain  herself, 
to  show  herself  in  the  right  light.  He  was  manifestly 
exerting  his  mind  for  her,  and  she  found  herself  fully 
disposed  to  justify  his  interest. 

She,  perhaps,  displayed  herself  rather  consciously  as 
a  fine  person  unduly  limited.  She  even  touched  lightly, 
on  her  father's  unreasonableness. 

"I  wonder,"  said  Ramage,  "that  more  girls  don't 
think  as  you  do  and  want  to  strike  out  in  the  world." 

And  then  he  speculated.     "I  wonder  if  you  will?" 

"Let  me  say  one  thing,"  he  said.  "If  ever  you  do 
and  I  can  help  you  in  any  way,  by  advice  or  inquiry  or 
recommendation —  You  see,  I'm  no  believer  in  feminine 
incapacity,  but  I  do  perceive  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
feminine  inexperience.  As  a  sex  you're  a  little  under- 
trained — in  affairs.  I'd  take  it — forgive  me  if  I  seem  a 
little  urgent — as  a  sort  of  proof  of  friendliness.  I  can 
imagine  nothing  more  pleasant  in  life  than  to  help  you, 
because  I  know  it  would  pay  to  help  you.  There's  some- 

83 


ANN    VERONICA 

thing  about  you,  a  little  flavor  of  Will,  I  suppose,  that 
makes  one  feel — good  luck  about  you  and  success.  ..." 

And  while  he  talked  and  watched  her  as  he  talked,  she 
answered,  and  behind  her  listening  watched  and  thought 
about  him.  She  liked  the  animated  eagerness  of  his 
manner. 

His  mind  seemed  to  be  a  remarkably  full  one;  his 
knowledge  of  detailed  reality  came  in  just  where  her  own 
mind  was  most  weakly  equipped.  Through  all  he  said 
ran  one  quality  that  pleased  her — the  quality  of  a  man 
who  feels  that  things  can  be  done,  that  one  need  not  wait 
for  the  world  to  push  one  before  one  moved.  Compared 
with  her  father  and  Mr.  Manning  and  the  men  in  "  fixed  " 
positions  generally  that  she  knew,  Ramage,  presented  by 
himself,  had  a  fine  suggestion  of  freedom,  of  power,  of 
deliberate  and  sustained  adventure.  .  .  . 

She  was  particularly  charmed  by  his  theory  of  friend- 
ship. It  was  really  very  jolly  to  talk  to  a  man  in  this 
way — who  saw  the  woman  in  her  and  did  not  treat  her 
as  a  child.  She  was  inclined  to  think  that  perhaps  for  a 
girl  the  converse  of  his  method  was  the  case;  an  older 
man,  a  man  beyond  the  range  of  anything  "nonsensical," 
was,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting  sort  of  friend  one  could 
meet.  But  in  that  reservation  it  may  be  she  went  a  little 
beyond  the  converse  of  his  view.  .  .  . 

/  They  got  on  wonderfully  well  together.  They  talked 
for  the  better  part  of  an  hour,  and  at  last  walked  to- 
gether to  the  junction  of  highroad  and  the  bridle-path. 
There,  after  protestations  of  friendliness  and  helpfulness 
that  were  almost  ardent,  he  mounted  a  little  clumsily 
and  rode  off  at  an  amiable  pace,  looking  his  best,  making 
\  a  leg  with  his  riding  gaiters,  smiling  and  saluting,  while 

84 


THE   MORNING   OF   THE   CRISIS 

Ann  Veronica  turned  northward  and  so  came  to  Mickle- 
chesil.  There,  in  a  little  tea  and  sweet-stuff  shop,  she 
bought  and  consumed  slowly  and  absent-mindedly  the 
insufficient  nourishment  that  is  natural  to  her  sex' on 
such  occasions. 


CHAPTER  THE    FOURTH 

THE    CRISIS 
§   I 

WE  left  Miss  Stanley  with  Ann  Veronica's  fancy 
dress  in  her  hands  and  her  eyes  directed  to  Ann 
Veronica's  pseudo-Turkish  slippers. 

When  Mr.  Stanley  came  home  at  a  quarter  to  six — 
an  earlier  train  by  fifteen  minutes  than  he  affected — 
his  sister  met  him  in  the  hall  with  a  hushed  expression. 
"  I'm  so  glad  you're  here,  Peter,"  she  said.  "  She  means 
to  go." 

"Go!"  he  said.     "Where?" 

"To  that  ball." 

"What  ball?"  The  question  was  rhetorical.  He 
knew. 

"I  believe  she's  dressing  up-stairs — now." 

"Then  tell  her  to  undress,  confound  her!"  The  City 
had  been  thoroughly  annoying  that  day,  and  he  was 
angry  from  the  outset. 

Miss  Stanley  reflected  on  this  proposal  for  a  moment. 

"I  don't  think  she  will,"  she  said. 

"She  must,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  and  went  into  his 
study.  His  sister  followed.  "  She  can't  go  now.  She'll 
have  to  wait  for  dinner,"  he  said,  uncomfortably. 

86 


THE   CRISIS 

"She's  going  to  have  some  sort  of  meal  with  the 
Widgetts  down  the  Avenue,  and  go  up  with  them." 

"She  told  you  that?" 

"Yes." 

"When?" 

"At  tea." 

"  But  why  didn't  you  prohibit  once  for  all  the  whole 
thing?  How  dared  she  tell  you  that?" 

"Out  of  defiance.  She  just  sat  and  told  me  that 
was  her  arrangement.  I've  never  seen  her  quite  so 
sure  of  herself." 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"I  said,  'My  dear  Veronica!  how  can  you  think  of 
such  things?'  " 

"And  then?" 

"  She  had  two  more  cups  of  tea  and  some  cake,  and 
told  me  of  her  walk." 

"She'll  meet  somebody  one  of  these  days— walking 
about  like  that." 

"She  didn't  say  she'd  met  any  one." 

"But  didn't  you  say  some  more  about  that  ball?" 

"  I  said  everything  I  could  say  as  soon  as  I  realized 
she  was  trying  to  avoid  the  topic.  I  said,  '  It  is  no  use 
your  telling  me  about  this  walk  and  pretend  I've  been 
told  about  the  ball,  because  you  haven't.  Your  father 
has  forbidden  you  to  go!'" 

"Well?" 

"She  said,  'I  hate  being  horrid  to  you  and  father, 
but  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  go  to  that  ball!' " 

"Felt  it  her  duty!" 

" '  Very  well,'  I  said, '  then  I  wash  my  hands  of  the  whole 
business.  Your  disobedience  be  upon  your  own  head.' " 

87 


ANN    VERONICA 

"But  that  is  flat  rebellion!"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  stand- 
ing on  the  hearthrug  with  his  back  to  the  unlit  gas-fire. 
"You  ought  at  once — you  ought  at  once  to  have  told 
her  that.  What  duty  does  a  girl  owe  to  any  one  before 
her  father?  Obedience  to  him,  that  is  surely  the  first 
law.  What  can  she  put  before  that  ?"  His  voice  began 
to  rise.  "One  would  think  I  had  said  nothing  about 
the  matter.  One  would  think  I  had  agreed  to  her  going. 
I  suppose  this  is  what  she  learns  in  her  infernal  Lon- 
don colleges.  I  suppose  this  is  the  sort  of  damned 
rubbish — " 

"Oh!     Ssh,  Peter!"  cried  Miss  Stanley. 

He  stopped  abruptly.  In  the  pause  a  door  could 
be  heard  opening  and  closing  on  the  landing  up-stairs. 
Then  light  footsteps  became  audible,  descending  the 
staircase  with  a  certain  deliberation  and  a  faint  rustle 
of  skirts. 

"Tell  her,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  with  an  imperious  gest- 
ure, "to  come  in  here." 

§   2 

Miss  Stanley  emerged  from  the  study  and  stood 
watching  Ann  Veronica  descend. 

The  girl  was  flushed  with  excitement,  bright-eyed, 
and  braced  for  a  struggle;  her  aunt  had  never  seen  her 
looking  so  fine  or  so  pretty.  Her  fancy  dress,  save  for  the 
green-gray  stockings,  the  pseudo-Turkish  slippers,  and 
baggy  silk  trousered  ends  natural  to  a  Corsair's  bride, 
was  hidden  in  a  large  black-silk-hooded  opera-cloak. 
Beneath  the  hood  it  was  evident  that  her  rebellious  hair 
was  bound  up  with  red  silk,  and  fastened  by  some  de- 

88 


THE   CRISIS 

vice  in  her  ears  (unless  she  had  them  pierced,  which  was 
too  dreadful  a  thing  to  suppose!)  were  long  brass  filigree 
earrings. 

"  I'm  just  off,  aunt,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  Your  father  is  in  the  study  and  wishes  to  speak  to 
you." 

Ann  Veronica  hesitated,  and  then  stood  in  the  open 
doorway  and  regarded  her  father's  stern  presence.  She 
spoke  with  an  entirely  false  note  of  cheerful  off-handed- 
ness.  "  I'm  just  in  time  to  say  good-bye  before  I  go, 
father.  I'm  going  up  to  London  with  the  Widgetts  to 
that  ball." 

"Now  look  here,  Ann  Veronica,"  said  Mr.  Stanley, 
"just  a  moment.  You  are  not  going  to  that  ball!" 

Ann  Veronica  tried  a  less  genial,  more  dignified  note. 

"  I  thought  we  had  discussed  that,  father." 

"  You  are  not  going  to  that  ball!  You  are  not  going 
out  of  this  house  in  that  get-up!" 

Ann  Veronica  tried  yet  more  earnestly  to  treat  him, 
as  she  would  treat  any  man,  with  an  insistence  upon  her 
due  of  masculine  respect.  "You  see,"  she  said,  very 
gently,  "  I  am  going.  I  am  sorry  to  seem  to  disobey 
you,  but  I  am.  I  wish  " — she  found  she  had  embarked 
on  a  bad  sentence — "  I  wish  we  needn't  have  quar- 
relled." 

She  stopped  abruptly,  and  turned  about  toward  the 
front  door.  In  a  moment  he  was  beside  her.  "  I  don't 
think  you  can  have  heard  me,  Vee,"  he  said,  with  in- 
tensely controlled  fury.  "  I  said  you  were  " — he  shout- 
ed— "not  to  go!" 

She  made,  and  overdid,  an  immense  effort  to  be  a 
princess.  She  tossed  her  head,  and,  having  no  further 

89 


ANN    VERONICA 

words,  moved  toward  the  door.  Her  father  intercepted 
her,  and  for  a  moment  she  and  he  struggled  with  their 
hands  upon  the  latch.  A  common  rage  flushed  their 
faces.  "Let  go!"  she  gasped  at  him,  a  blaze  of  anger. 

"Veronica!"  cried  Miss  Stanley,  warningly,  and, 
"Peter!" 

For  a  moment  they  seemed  on  the  verge  of  an  alto- 
gether desperate  scuffle.  Never  for  a  moment  had  vio- 
lence come  between  these  two  since  long  ago  he  had, 
in  spite  of  her  mother's  protest  in  the  background, 
carried  her  kicking  and  squalling  to  the  nursery  for 
some  forgotten  crime.  With  something  near  to  horror 
they  found  themselves  thus  confronted. 

The  door  was  fastened  by  a  catch  and  a  latch  with  an 
inside  key,  to  which  at  night  a  chain  and  two  bolts  were 
added.  Carefully  abstaining  from  thrusting  against 
each  other,  Ann  Veronica  and  her  father  began  an 
absurdly  desperate  struggle,  the  one  to  open  the  door, 
the  other  to  keep  it  fastened.  She  seized  the  key,  and 
he  grasped  her  hand  and  squeezed  it  roughly  and  pain- 
fully between  the  handle  and  the  ward  as  she  tried  to 
turn  it.  His  grip  twisted  her  wrist.  She  cried  out  with 
the  pain  of  it. 

A  wild  passion  of  shame  and  self-disgust  swept  over 
her.  Her  spirit  awoke  in  dismay  to  an  affection  in  ruins, 
to  the  immense  undignified  disaster  that  had  come  to 
them. 

Abruptly  she  desisted,  recoiled,  and  turned  and  fled 
up-stairs. 

She  made  noises  between  weeping  and  laughter  as 
she  went.  She  gained  her  room,  and  slammed  her  door 
and  locked  it  as  though  she  feared  violence  and  pursuit. 

90 


THE   CRISIS 

"Oh  God!"  she  cried,  "Oh  God!"  and  flung  aside  her 
opera-cloak,  and  for  a  time  walked  about  the  room — a 
Corsair's  bride  at  a  crisis  of  emotion.  "Why  can't  he 
reason  with  me,"  she  said,  again  and  again,  "instead  of 
doing  this?" 


§3 


There  presently  came  a  phase  in  which  she  said:  "I 
won't  stand  it  even  now.  I  will  go  to-night." 

She  went  as  far  as  her  door,  then  turned  to  the  win- 
dow. She  opened  this  and  scrambled  out — a  thing  she 
had  not  done  for  five  long  years  of  adolescence — upon 
the  leaded  space  above  the  built-out  bath-room  on  the 
first  floor.  Once  upon  a  time  she  and  Roddy  had  de- 
scended thence  by  the  drain-pipe. 

But  things  that  a  girl  of  sixteen  may  do  in  short 
skirts  are  not  things  to  be  done  by  a  young  lady  of 
twenty-one  in  fancy  dress  and  an  opera-cloak,  and  just 
as  she  was  coming  unaided  to  an  adequate  realization  of 
this,  she  discovered  Mr.  Pragmar,  the  wholesale  druggist, 
who  lived  three  gardens  away,  and  who  had  been  mow- 
ing his  lawn  to  get  an  appetite  for  dinner,  standing  in  a 
fascinated  attitude  beside  the  forgotten  lawn-mower 
and  watching  her  intently. 

She  found  it  extremely  difficult  to  infuse  an  air  of 
quiet  correctitude  into  her  return  through  the  window, 
and  when  she  was  safely  inside  she  waved  clinched  fists 
and  executed  a  noiseless  dance  of  rage. 

When  she  reflected  that  Mr.  Pragmar  probably  knew 
Mr.  Ramage,  and  might  describe  the  affair  to  him,  she 
7  91 


ANN    VERONICA 

cried  "Oh!"  with  renewed  vexation,  and  repeated  some 
steps  of  her  dance  in  a  new  and  more  ecstatic  measure. 


§  4 

At  eight  that  evening  Miss  Stanley  tapped  at  Ann 
Veronica's  bedroom  door. 

"I've  brought  you  up  some  dinner,  Vee,"  she  said. 

Ann  Veronica  was  lying  on  her  bed  in  a  darkling  room 
staring  at  the  ceiling.  She  reflected  before  answering. 
She  was  frightfully  hungry.  She  had  eaten  little  or  no 
tea,  and  her  mid-day  meal  had  been  worse  than  nothing. 

She  got  up  and  unlocked  the  door. 

Her  aunt  did  not  object  to  capital  punishment  or  war, 
or  the  industrial  system  or  casual  wards,  or  flogging  of 
criminals  or  the  Congo  Free  State,  because  none  of  these 
things  really  got  hold  of  her  imagination;  but  she  did 
object,  she  did  not  like,  she  could  not  bear  to  think  of 
people  not  having  and  enjoying  their  meals.  It  was 
her  distinctive  test  of  an  emotional  state,  its  interference 
with  a  kindly  normal  digestion.  Any  one  very  badly 
moved  choked  down  a  few  mouthfuls;  the  symptom  of 
supreme  distress  was  not  to  be  able  to  touch  a  bit.  So 
that  the  thought  of  Ann  Veronica  up-stairs  had  been 
extremely  painful  for  her  through  all  the  silent  dinner- 
time that  night.  As  soon  as  dinner  was  over  she  went 
into  the  kitchen  and  devoted  herself  to  compiling  a  tray 
— not  a  tray  merely  of  half-cooled  dinner  things,  but  a 
specially  prepared  "nice"  tray,  suitable  for  tempting 
any  one.  With  this  she  now  entered. 
\  Ann  Veronica  found  herself  in  the  presence  of  the 

92 


THE   CRISIS 

most  disconcerting  fact  in  human  experience,  the  kindli- 
ness of  people  you  believe  to  be  thoroughly  wrong.  She 
took  the  tray  with  both  hands,  gulped,  and  gave  way 
to  tears. 

Her  aunt  leaped  unhappily  to  the  thought  of  penitence., 

"My  dear,"  she  began,  with  an  affectionate  hand  on 
Ann  Veronica's  shoulder,  "I  do  so  wish  you  would 
realize  how  it  grieves  your  father." 

Ann  Veronica  flung  away  from  her  hand,  and  the 
pepper-pot  on  the  tray  upset,  sending  a  puff  of  pepper 
into  the  air  and  instantly  filling  them  both  with  an  in-, 
tense  desire  to  sneeze.  / 

"  I  don't  think  you  see,"  she  replied,  with  tears  on  her 
cheeks,  and  her  brows  knitting,  "how  it  shames  arm, 
ah! — disgraces  me — ah  tishu!" 

She  put  down  the  tray  with  a  concussion  on  her  toil<  it- 
table. 

"But,  dear,  think!     He  is  your  father.     Shook!"     \ 

"That's  no  reason,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  speaking 
through  her  handkerchief  and  stopping  abruptly.  \ 

Niece  and  aunt  regarded  each  other  for  a  moment  \ 
over  their  pocket-handkerchiefs  with  watery  but  an-  1 
tagonistic  eyes,  each  far  too  profoundly  moved  to  see 
the  absurdity  of  the  position. 

"I  hope,"  said  Miss  Stanley,  with  dignity,  and  turned 
doorward  with  features  in  civil  warfare.  "  Better  state 
of  mind,"  she  gasped.  .  .  . 

Ann  Veronica  stood  in  the  twilight  room  staring  at 
the  door  that  had  slammed  upon  her  aunt,  her  pocket- 
handkerchief  rolled  tightly  in  her  hand.  Her  soul  was 
full  of  the  sense  of  disaster.  She  had  made  her  first 
fight  for  dignity  and  freedom  as  a  grown-up  and  inde- 

93 


ANN    VERONICA 

pendent  Person,  and  this  was  how  the  universe  had 
treated  fcer.  It  had  neither  succumbed  to  her  nor 
wrathfully  overwhelmed  her.  It  had  thrust  her  back 
with  an  undignified  scuffle,  with  vulgar  comedy,  with 
an  unendurable,  scornful  grin. 

"By  God!"  said  Ann  Veronica  for  the  first  time  in 
her  life.     "But  I  will!     I  will!" 


CHAPTER  THE    FIFTH 

THE    FLIGHT   TO   LONDON 
§   I 

ANN  VERONICA  had  an  impression  that  she  did 
not  sleep  at  all  that  night,  and  at  any  rate  she  got 
through  an  immense  amount  of  feverish  feeling  and 
thinking. 

What  was  she  going  to  do  ? 

One  main  idea  possessed  her:  she  must  get  away 
from  home,  she  must  assert  herself  at  once  or  perish. 
"Very  well/'  she  would  say,  "then  I  must  go."  To 
remain,  she  felt,  was  to  concede  everything.  And 
she  would  have  to  go  to-morrow.  It  was  clear  it  must 
be  to-morrow.  If  she  delayed  a  day  she  would  delay 
two  days,  if  she  delayed  two  days  she  would  delay  a 
week,  and  after  a  week  things  would  be  adjusted  to 
submission  forever.  "I'll  go,"  she  vowed  to  the  night, 
"or  I'll  die!"  She  made  plans  and  estimated  means 
and  resources.  These  and  her  general  preparations 
had  perhaps  a  certain  disproportion.  She  had  a  gold 
watch,  a  very  good  gold  watch  that  had  been  her 
mother's,  a  pearl  necklace  that  was  also  pretty  good, 
some  unpretending  rings,  some  silver  bangles  and  a  few 
other  such  inferior  trinkets,  three  pounds  thirteen 

95 


ANN    VERONICA 

shillings  unspent  of  her  dress  and  book  allowance, 
and  a  few  good  salable  books.  So  equipped,  she 
proposed  to  set  up  a  separate  establishment  in  the 
world. 

And  then  she  would  find  work. 

For  most  of  a  long  and  fluctuating  night  she  was 
fairly  confident  that  she  would  find  work;  she  knew 
herself  to  be  strong,  intelligent,  and  capable  by  the 
standards  of  most  of  the  girls  she  knew.  She  was 
not  quite  clear  how  she  should  find  it,  but  she  felt  she 
would.  Then  she  would  write  and  tell  her  father  what 
she  had  done,  and  put  their  relationship  on  a  new 
footing. 

That  was  how  she  projected  it,  and  in  general  terms 
it  seemed  plausible  and  possible.  But  in  between  these 
wider  phases  of  comparative  confidence  were  gaps  of 
disconcerting  doubt,  when  the  universe  was  presented 
as  making  sinister  and  threatening  faces  at  her,  defying 
her  to  defy,  preparing  a  humiliating  and  shameful 
overthrow.  "I  don't  care,"  said  Ann  Veronica  to  the 
darkness;  "I'll  fight  it." 

She  tried  to  plan  her  proceedings  in  detail.  The 
only  difficulties  that  presented  themselves  clearly  to 
her  were  the  difficulties  of  getting  away  from  Morning- 
side  Park,  and  not  the  difficulties  at  the  other  end  of 
the  journey.  These  were  so  outside  her  experience 
that  she  found  it  possible  to  thrust  them  almost  out 
of  sight  by  saying  they  would  be  "all  right"  in  con- 
fident tones  to  herself.  But  still  she  knew  they  were 
not  right,  and  at  times  they  became  a  horrible  obsession 
as  of  something  waiting  for  her  round  the  corner.  She 
tried  to  imagine  herself  "getting  something,"  to  project 


THE    FLIGHT   TO   LONDON 

herself  as  sitting  down  at  a  desk  and  writing,  or  as 
returning  after  her  work  to  some  pleasantly  equipped 
and  free  and  independent  flat.  For  a  time  she  furnished 
the  flat.  But  even  with  that  furniture  it  remained 
extremely  vague,  the  possible  good  and  the  possible 
evil  as  well!  The  possible  evil!  "I'll  go,"  said  Ann 
Veronica  for  the  hundredth  time.  "I'll  go.  I  don't 
care  what  happens." 

She  awoke  out  of  a  doze,  as  though  she  had  never 
been  sleeping.  It  was  time  to  get  up. 

She  sat  on  the  edge  of  her  bed  and  looked  about 
her,  at  her  room,  at  the  row  of  black-covered  books 
and  the  pig's  skull.  "I  must  take  them,"  she  said, 
to  help  herself  over  her  own  incredulity.  "How  shall 
I  get  my  luggage  out  of  the  house?  ..." 

The  figure  of  her  aunt,  a  little  distant,  a  little  pro- 
pitiatory, behind  the  coffee  things,  filled  her  with  a 
sense  of  almost  catastrophic  adventure.  Perhaps  she 
might  never  come  back  to  that  breakfast-room  again. 
Never!  Perhaps  some  day,  quite  soon,  she  might 
regret  that  breakfast-room.  She  helped  herself  to  the 
remainder  of  the  slightly  congealed  bacon,  and  re- 
verted to  the  problem  of  getting  her  luggage  out  of  the 
house.  She  decided  to  call  in  the  help  of  Teddy  Widgett, 
or,  failing  him,  of  one  of  his  sisters. 


§    2 

She  found  the  younger  generation  of  the  Widgetts 
engaged  in  languid  reminiscences,  and  all,  as  they 
expressed  it,  a  "bit  decayed."  Every  one  became 

97 


ANN    VERONICA 

tremendously  animated  when  they  heard  that  Ann 
Veronica  had  failed  them  because  she  had  been,  as 
she  expressed  it,  "locked  in." 

"My  God!"  said  Teddy,  more  impressively  than  ever. 

"But   what   are   you  going  to   do?"    asked   Hetty. 

"What  can  one  do?"  asked  Ann  Veronica.  "Would 
you  stand  it?  I'm  going  to  clear  out." 

"Clear  out?"  cried  Hetty. 

"Go  to  London,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

She  had  expected  sympathetic  admiration,  but 
instead  the  whole  Widgett  family,  except  Teddy, 
expressed  a  common  dismay.  "But  how  can  you?" 
asked  Constance.  "Who  will  you  stop  with?" 

"I  shall  go  on  my  own.     Take  a  room!" 

"I  say!"  said  Constance.  "But  who's  going  to  pay 
for  the  room?" 

"I've  got  money,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "Any- 
thing is  better  than  this — this  stifled  life  down  here." 
And  seeing  that  Hetty  and  Constance  were  obviously 
developing  objections,  she  plunged  at  once  into  a 
demand  for  help.  "I've  got  nothing  in  the  world  to 
pack  with  except  a  toy  size  portmanteau.  Can  you  lend 
me  some  stuff?" 

"You  are  a  chap!"  said  Constance,  and  warmed 
only  slowly  from  the  idea  of  dissuasion  to  the  idea 
of  help.  But  they  did  what  they  could  for  her.  They 
agreed  to  lend  her  their  hold-all  and  a  large,  formless 
bag  which  they  called  the  communal  trunk.  And  Teddy 
declared  himself  ready  to  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
for  her,  and  carry  her  luggage  all  the  way. 

Hetty,  looking  out  of  the  window — she  always 
smoked  her  after-breakfast  cigarette  at  the  window 


THE    FLIGHT   TO    LONDON 

for  the  benefit  of  the  less  advanced  section  of  Morning- 
side  Park  society — and  trying  not  to  raise  objections, 
saw  Miss  Stanley  going  down  toward  the  shops. 

"If  you  must  go  on  with  it,"  said  Hetty,  "now's 
your  time."  And  Ann  Veronica  at  once  went  back 
with  the  hold-all,  trying  not  to  hurry  indecently  but 
to  keep  up  her  dignified  air  of  being  a  wronged  person 
doing  the  right  thing  at  a  smart  trot,  to  pack.  Teddy 
went  round  by  the  garden  backs  and  dropped  the 
bag  over  the  fence.  All  this  was  exciting  and  enter- 
taining. Her  aunt  returned  before  the  packing  was 
done,  and  Ann  Veronica  lunched  with  an  uneasy  sense 
of  bag  and  hold-all  packed  up-stairs  and  inadequately 
hidden  from  chance  intruders  by  the  valance  of  the  bed. 
She  went  down,  flushed  and  light-hearted,  to  the 
Widgetts'  after  lunch  to  make  some  final  arrangements, 
and  then,  as  soon  as  her  aunt  had  retired  to  lie  down 
for  her  usual  digestive  hour,  took  the  risk  of  the  servants 
having  the  enterprise  to  report  her  proceedings  and 
carried  her  bag  and  hold-all  to  the  garden  gate,  whence 
Teddy,  in  a  state  of  ecstatic  service,  bore  them  to  the 
railway  station.  Then  she  went  up-stairs  again,  dressed 
herself  carefully  for  town,  put  on  her  most  businesslike- 
looking  hat,  and  with  a  wave  of  emotion  she  found 
it  hard  to  control,  walked  down  to  catch  the  3.17  up- 
train. 

Teddy  handed  her  into  the  second-class  compartment 
her  season-ticket  warranted,  and  declared  she  was 
"simply  splendid."  "If  you  want  anything,"  he  said, 
"or  get  into  any  trouble,  wire  me.  I'd  come  back  from 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  I'd  do  anything,  Vee.  It's  hor- 
rible to  think  of  you!" 

99 


ANN    VERONICA 

"You're  an  awful  brick,  Teddy!"  she  said. 

"Who  wouldn't  be— for  you?" 

The  train  began  to  move.  "You're  splendid!"  said 
Teddy,  with  his  hair  wild  in  the  wind.  "Good  luck! 
Good  luck!" 

She  waved  from  the  window  until  the  bend  hid  him. 

She  found  herself  alone  in  the  train  asking  herself 
what  she  must  do  next,  and  trying  not  to  think  of  her- 
self as  cut  off  from  home  or  any  refuge  whatever  from 
the  world  she  had  resolved  to  face.  She  felt  smaller 
and  more  adventurous  even  than  she  had  expected  to 
feel.  "Let  me  see,"  she  said  to  herself,  trying  to  control 
a  slight  sinking  of  the  heart,  "  I  am  going  to  take  a  room 
in  a  lodging-house  because  that  is  cheaper.  .  .  .  But  per- 
haps I  had  better  get  a  room  in  an  hotel  to-night  and 
look  round.  .  .  . 

"It's  bound  to  be  all  right,"  she  said. 

But  her  heart  kept  on  sinking.  What  hotel  should  she 
go  to?  If  she  told  a  cabman  to  drive  to  an  hotel,  any 
hotel,  what  would  he  do — or  say?  He  might  drive  to 
something  dreadfully  expensive,  and  not  at  all  the  quiet 
sort  of  thing  she  required.  Finally  she  decided  that 
even  for  an  hotel  she  must  look  round,  and  that  mean- 
while she  would  "book"  her  luggage  at  Waterloo.  She 
told  the  porter  to  take  it  to  the  booking-office,  and  it 
was  only  after  a  disconcerting  moment  or  so  that  she 
found  she  ought  to  have  directed  him  to  go  to  the  cloak- 
room. But  that  was  soon  put  right,  and  she  walked  out 
into  London  with  a  peculiar  exaltation  of  mind,  an  ex- 
altation that  partook  of  panic  and  defiance,  but  was 
chiefly  a  sense  of  vast  unexampled  release. 

She  inhaled  a  deep  breath  of  air — London  air. 

100 


THE   FLIGHT   TO   LONDON 

§3 

She  dismissed  the  first  hotels  she  passed,  she  scarcely 
knew  why,  mainly  perhaps  from  the  mere  dread  of  en- 
tering them,  and  crossed  Waterloo  Bridge  at  a  leisurely 
pace.  It  was  high  afternoon,  there  was  no  great  throng 
of  foot-passengers,  and  many  an  eye  from  omnibus  and 
pavement  rested  gratefully  on  her  fresh,  trim  presence 
as  she  passed  young  and  erect,  with  the  light  of  deter- 
mination shining  through  the  quiet  self-possession  of  her 
face.  She  was  dressed  as  English  girls  do  dress  for  town, 
without  either  coquetry  or  harshness:  her  collarless 
blouse  confessed  a  pretty  neck,  her  eyes  were  bright  and 
steady,  and  her  dark  hair  waved  loosely  and  graciously 
over  her  ears.  .  .  . 

It  seemed  at  first  the  most  beautiful  afternoon  of  all 
time  to  her,  and  perhaps  the  thrill  of  her  excitement  did 
add  a  distinctive  and  culminating  keenness  to  the  day. 
The  river,  the  big  buildings  on  the  north  bank,  West- 
minster, and  St.  Paul's,  were  rich  and  wonderful  with  the 
soft  sunshine  of  London,  the  softest,  the  finest  grained, 
the  most  penetrating  and  least  emphatic  sunshine  in  the 
world.  The  very  carts  and  vans  and  cabs  that  Welling- 
ton Street  poured  out  incessantly  upon  the  bridge 
seemed  ripe  and  good  in  her  eyes.  A  traffic  of  copious 
barges  slumbered  over  the  face  of  the  river — barges 
either  altogether  stagnant  or  dreaming  along  in  the  wake 
of  fussy  tugs;  and  above  circled,  urbanely  voracious,  the 
London  seagulls.  She  had  never  been  there  before  at 
that  hour,  in  that  light,  and  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  she 
came  to  it  all  for  the  first  time.  And  this  great  mellow 
place,  this  London,  now  was  hers,  to  struggle  with,  to  go 

101 


, 


ANN    VERONICA 

where  she  pleased  in,  to  overcome  and  live  in.  "I  am 
glad,"  she  told  herself,  "I  came." 

She  marked  an  hotel  that  seemed  neither  opulent  nor 
odd  in  a  little  side  street  opening  on  the  Embankment, 
made  up  her  mind  with  an  effort,  and,  returning  by 
Hungerford  Bridge  to  Waterloo,  took  a  cab  to  this 
chosen  refuge  with  her  two  pieces  of  luggage.  There 
was  just  a  minute's  hesitation  before  they  gave  her  a 
room.  The  young  lady  in  the  bureau  said  she  would  in' 
quire,  and  Ann  Veronica,  while  she  affected  to  read  the 
appeal  on  a  hospital  collecting-box  upon  the  bureau 
counter,  had  a  disagreeable  sense  of  being  surveyed  from 
behind  by  a  small,  whiskered  gentleman  in  a  frock-coat, 
who  came  out  of  the  inner  office  and  into  the  hall  among 
a  number  of  equally  observant  green  porters  to  look  at 
her  and  her  bags.  But  the  survey  was  satisfactory, 
and  she  found  herself  presently  in  Room  No.  47, 
straightening  her  hat  and  waiting  for  her  luggage  to 
appear. 

"All  right  so  far,"  she  said  to  herself.  .  .  . 


§4 

But  presently,  as  she  sat  on  the  one  antimacassared 
red  silk  chair  and  surveyed  her  hold-all  and  bag  in  that 
tidy,  rather  vacant,  and  dehumanized  apartment,  with 
its  empty  wardrobe  and  desert  toilet-table  and  picture- 
less  walls  and  stereotyped  furnishings,  a  sudden  blank- 
ness  came  upon  her  as  though  she  didn't  matter,  and  had 
been  thrust  away  into  this  impersonal  corner,  she  and 
her  gear.  .  .  . 

102 


THE    FLIGHT   TO    LONDON 

She  decided  to  go  out  into  the  London  afternoon  again 
and  get  something  to  eat  in  an  Aerated  Bread  shop  or 
some  such  place,  and  perhaps  find  a  cheap  room  for  her- 
self. Of  course  that  was  what  she  had  to  do ;  she  had  to 
find  a  cheap  room  for  herself  and  work!  This  Room 
No.  47  was  no  more  than  a  sort  of  railway  compartment 
on  the  way  to  that. 

How  does  one  get  work  ? 

She  walked  along  the  Strand  and  across  Trafalgar 
Square,  and  by  the  Haymarket  to  Piccadilly,  and  so 
through  dignified  squares  and  palatial  alleys  to  Oxford 
Street ;  and  her  mind  was  divided  between  a  speculative 
treatment  of  employment  on  the  one  hand,  and  breezes 
— zephyr  breezes — of  the  keenest  appreciation  for  Lon- 
don, on  the  other.  The  jolly  part  of  it  was  that  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life  so  far  as  London  was  concerned,  she 
was  not  going  anywhere  in  particular;  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life  it  seemed  to  her  she  was  taking  London  in. 

She  tried  to  think  how  people  get  work.  Ought  she 
to  walk  into  some  of  these  places  and  tell  them  what  she 
could  do  ?  She  hesitated  at  the  window  of  a  shipping- 
office  in  Cockspur  Street  and  at  the  Army  and  Navy 
Stores,  but  decided  that  perhaps  there  would  be  some 
special  and  customary  hour,  and  that  it  would  be  better 
for  her  to  find  this  out  before  she  made  her  attempt. 
And,  besides,  she  didn't  just  immediately  want  to  make 
her  attempt. 

She  fell  into  a  pleasant  dream  of  positions  and  work. 
Behind  every  one  of  these  myriad  fronts  she  passed 
there  must  be  a  career  or  careers.  Her  ideas  of  women's 
employment  and  a  modern  woman's  pose  in  life  were 
based  largely  on  the  figure  of  Vivie  Warren  in  Mrs. 

103 


ANN    VERONICA 

Warren's  Profession.  She  had  seen  Mrs.  Warren's 
Profession  furtively  with  Hetty  Widgett  from  the  gal- 
lery of  a  Stage  Society  performance  one  Monday  after- 
noon. Most  of  it  had  been  incomprehensible  to  her, 
or  comprehensible  in  a  way  that  checked  further  curi- 
osity, but  the  figure  of  Vivien,  hard,  capable,  successful, 
and  bullying,  and  ordering  about  a  veritable  Teddy  in 
the  person  of  Frank  Gardner,  appealed  to  her.  She 
saw  herself  in  very  much  Vivie's  position — managing 
something. 

Her  thoughts  were  deflected  from  Vivie  Warren  by 
the  peculiar  behavior  of  a  middle-aged  gentleman  in 
Piccadilly.  He  appeared  suddenly  from  the  infinite  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Burlington  Arcade,  crossing 
the  pavement  toward  her  and  with  his  eyes  upon  her. 
He  seemed  to  her  indistinguishably  about  her  father's 
age.  He  wore  a  silk  hat  a  little  tilted,  and  a  morning 
coat  buttoned  round  a  tight,  contained  figure;  and  a 
white  slip  gave  a  finish  to  his  costume  and  endorsed  the 
quiet  distinction  of  his  tie.  His  face  was  a  little  flushed 
perhaps,  and  his  small,  brown  eyes  were  bright.  He 
stopped  on  the  curb-stone,  not  facing  her  but  as  if  he 
was  on  his  way  to  cross  the  road,  and  spoke  to  her  sud- 
denly over  his  shoulder. 

"Whither  away?"  he  said,  very  distinctly  in  a  curi- 
ously wheedling  voice.  Ann  Veronica  stared  at  his 
foolish,  propitiatory  smile,  his  hungry  gaze,  through  one 
moment  of  amazement,  then  stepped  aside  and  went  on 
her  way  with  a  quickened  step.  But  her  mind  was 
ruffled,  and  its  mirror-like  surface  of  satisfaction  was  not 
easily  restored. 

Queer  old  gentleman! 

104 


THE    FLIGHT    TO    LONDON 

The  art  of  ignoring  is  one  of  the  accomplishments  of 
every  well-bred  girl,  so  carefully  instilled  that  at  last 
she  can  even  ignore  her  own  thoughts  and  her  own 
knowledge.  Ann  Veronica  could  at  the  same  time  ask 
herself  what  this  queer  old  gentleman  could  have  meant 
by  speaking  to  her,  and  know — know  in  general  terms, 
at  least — what  that  accosting  signified.  About  her,  as 
she  had  gone  day  by  day  to  and  from  the  Tredgold 
College,  she  had  seen  and  not  seen  many  an  incidental 
aspect  of  those  sides  of  life  about  which  girls  are  ex- 
pected to  know  nothing,  aspects  that  were  extraordi- 
narily relevant  to  her  own  position  and  outlook  on  the 
world,  and  yet  by  convention  ineffably  remote.  For 
all  that  she  was  of  exceptional  intellectual  enterprise, 
she  had  never  yet  considered  these  things  with  un-' 
averted  eyes.  She  had  viewed  them  askance,  and 
without  exchanging  ideas  with  any  one  else  in  the 
world  about  them. 

She  went  on  her  way  now  no  longer  dreaming  and 
appreciative,  but  disturbed  and  unwillingly  observant 
behind  her  mask  of  serene  contentment. 

That  delightful  sense  of  free,  unembarrassed  move- 
ment was  gone. 

As  she  neared  the  bottom  of  the  dip  in  Piccadilly  she 
saw  a  woman  approaching  her  from  the  opposite  direc- 
tion— a  tall  woman  who  at  the  first  glance  seemed  alto- 
gether beautiful  and  fine.  She  came  along  with  the 
fluttering  assurance  of  some  tall  ship.  Then  as  she  drew 
nearer  paint  showed  upon  her  face,  and  a  harsh  purpose 
behind  the  quiet  expression  of  her  open  countenance, 
and  a  sort  of  unreality  in  her  splendor  betrayed  itself 
for  which  Ann  Veronica  could  not  recall  the  right  word 


ANN    VERONICA 

— a  word,  half  understood,  that  lurked  and  hid  in  her 
mind,  the  word  "meretricious."  Behind  this  woman 
and  a  little  to  the  side  of  her,  walked  a  man  smartly 
dressed,  with  desire  and  appraisal  in  his  eyes.  Some- 
thing insisted  that  those  two  were  mysteriously  linked — • 
that  the  woman  knew  the  man  was  there. 

It  was  a  second  reminder  that  against  her  claim  to  go 
free  and  untrammelled  there  was  a  case  to  be  made, 
that  after  all  it  was  true  that  a  girl  does  not  go  alone 
in  the  world  unchallenged,  nor  ever  has  gone  freely  alone 
in  the  world,  that  evil  walks  abroad  and  dangers,  and 
petty  insults  more  irritating  than  dangers,  lurk. 

It  was  in  the  quiet  streets  and  squares  toward  Oxford 
Street  that  it  first  came  into  her  head  disagreeably  that 
she  herself  was  being  followed.  She  observed  a  man 
walking  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  way  and  looking 
toward  her. 

"Bother  it  all!"  she  swore.  "Bother!"  and  decided  that 
this  was  not  so,  and  would  not  look  to  right  or  left  again. 

Beyond  the  Circus  Ann  Veronica  went  into  a  British 
Tea-Table  Company  shop  to  get  some  tea.  And  as  she 
was  yet  waiting  for  her  tea  to  come  she  saw  this  man 
again.  Either  it  was  an  unfortunate  recovery  of  a 
trail,  or  he  had  followed  her  from  Mayfair.  There  was 
no  mistaking  his  intentions  this  time.  He  came  down 
the  shop  looking  for  her  quite  obviously,  and  took  up 
a  position  on  the  other  side  against  a  mirror  in  which 
he  was  able  to  regard  her  steadfastly. 

Beneath  the  serene  unconcern  of  Ann  Veronica's  face 
was  a  boiling  tumult.  She  was  furiously  angry.  She 
gazed  with  a  quiet  detachment  toward  the  window  and 
the  Oxford  Street  traffic,  and  in  her  heart  she  was  busy 

106 


THE   FLIGHT   TO   LONDON 

kicking  this  man  to  death.  He  had  followed  her! 
What  had  he  followed  her  for  ?  He  must  have  followed 
her  all  the  way  from  beyond  Grosvenor  Square. 

He  was  a  tall  man  and  fair,  with  bluish  eyes  that  were 
rather  protuberant,  and  long  white  hands  of  which  he 
made  a  display.  He  had  removed  his  silk  hat,  and  now 
sat  looking  at  Ann  Veronica  over  an  untouched  cup  of 
tea;  he  sat  gloating  upon  her,  trying  to  catch  her  eye. 
Once,  when  he  thought  he  had  done  so,  he  smiled  an 
ingratiating  smile.  He  moved,  after  quiet  intervals, 
with  a  quick  little  movement,  and  ever  and  again  stroked 
his  small  mustache  and  coughed  a  self-conscious  cough. 

"That  he  should  be  in  the  same  world  with  me!" 
said  Ann  Veronica,  reduced  to  reading  the  list  of  good 
things  the  British  Tea-Table  Company  had  priced  for 
its  patrons. 

Heaven  knows  what  dim  and  tawdry  conceptions  of 
passion  and  desire  were  in  that  blond  cranium,  what 
romance-begotten  dreams  of  intrigue  and  adventure! 
but  they  sufficed,  when  presently  Ann  Veronica  went 
out  into  the  darkling  street  again,  to  inspire  a  flitting, 
dogged  pursuit,  idiotic,  exasperating,  indecent. 

She  had  no  idea  what  she  should  do.  If  she  spoke 
to  a  policeman  she  did  not  know  what  would  ensue. 
Perhaps  she  would  have  to  charge  this  man  and  appear 
in  a  police-court  next  day. 

She  became  angry  with  herself.  She  would  not  be 
driven  in  by  this  persistent,  sneaking  aggression.  She 
would  ignore  him.  Surely  she  could  ignore  him.  She 
stopped  abruptly,  and  looked  in  a  flower-shop  window. 
He  passed,  and  came  loitering  back  and  stood  beside 
her,  silently  looking  into  her  face. 

8  107 


ANN    VERONICA 

The  afternoon  had  passed  now  into  twilight.  The 
shops  were  lighting  up  into  gigantic  lanterns  of  color, 
the  street  lamps  were  glowing  into  existence,  and  she 
had  lost  her  way.  She  had  lost  her  sense  of  direction, 
and  was  among  unfamiliar  streets.  She  went  on  from 
street  to  street,  and  all  the  glory  of  London  had  de- 
parted. Against  the  sinister,  the  threatening,  mon- 
strous inhumanity  of  the  limitless  city,  there  was  nothing 
now  but  this  supreme,  ugly  fact  of  a  pursuit — the  pur- 
suit of  the  undesired,  persistent  male. 

For  a  second  time  Ann  Veronica  wanted  to  swear  at 
the  universe. 

There  were  moments  when  she  thought  of  turning 
upon  this  man  and  talking  to  him.  But  there  was 
something  in  his  face  at  once  stupid  and  invincible  that 
told  her  he  would  go  on  forcing  himself  upon  her,  that 
he  would  esteem  speech  with  her  a  great  point  gained. 
In  the  twilight  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  person  one  could 
tackle  and  shame;  he  had  become  something  more  gen- 
eral, a  something  that  crawled  and  sneaked  toward  her 
and  would  not  let  her  alone.  .  .  . 

Then,  when  the  tension  was  getting  unendurable, 
and  she  was  on  the  verge  of  speaking  to  some  casual 
passer-by  and  demanding  help,  her  follower  vanished. 
For  a  time  she  could  scarcely  believe  he  was  gone.  He 
had.  The  night  had  swallowed  him  up,  but  his  work 
on  her  was  done.  She  had  lost  her  nerve,  and  there 
was  no  more  freedom  in  London  for  her  that  night. 
She  was  glad  to  join  in  the  stream  of  hurrying  home- 
ward workers  that  was  now  welling  out  of  a  thousand 
places  of  employment,  and  to  imitate  their  driven,  pre- 
occupied haste.  She  had  followed  a  bobbing  white 

1 08 


THE   FLIGHT   TO   LONDON 

hat  and  gray  jacket  until  she  reached  the  Euston  Road 
corner  of  Tottenham  Court  Road,  and  there,  by  the 
name  on  a  bus  and  the  cries  of  a  conductor,  she  made  a 
guess  of  her  way.  And  she  did  not  merely  affect  to  be 
driven — she  felt  driven.  She  was  afraid  people  would 
follow  her,  she  was  afraid  of  the  dark,  open  doorways  she 
passed,  and  afraid  of  the  blazes  of  light ;  she  was  afraid 
to  be  alone,  and  she  knew  not  what  it  was  she  feared. 

It  was  past  seven  when  she  got  back  to  her  hotel. 
She  thought  then  that  she  had  shaken  off  the  man  of 
the  bulging  blue  eyes  forevei,  but  that  night  she  found 
he  followed  her  into  her  dreams.  He  stalked  her,  he 
stared  at  her,  he  craved  her,  he  sidled  slinking  and  pro- 
pitiatory and  yet  relentlessly  toward  her,  until  at  last 
she  awoke  from  the  suffocating  nightmare  nearness  of 
his  approach,  and  lay  awake  in  fear  and  horror  listening 
to  the  unaccustomed  sounds  of  the  hotel. 

She  came  very  near  that  night  to  resolving  that  she 
would  return  to  her  home  next  morning.  But  the  morn- 
ing brought  courage  again,  and  those  first  intimations 
of  horror  vanished  completely  from  her  mind. 


§5 

She  had  sent  her  father  a  telegram  from  the  East 
Strand  post-office  worded  thus: 


All 

is 

well 

with 

me 

and 

quite 

safe 

Veronica 

109 


ANN    VERONICA 

and  afterward  she  had  dined  d  la  carte  upon  a  cutlet, 
and  had  then  set  herself  to  write  an  answer  to  Mr.  Man- 
ning's proposal  of  marriage.  But  she  had  found  it  very 
difficult. 

"DEAR  MR.  MANNING,"  she  had  begun.  So  far  it 
had  been  plain  sailing,  and  it  had  seemed  fairly  evident 
to  go  on:  "/  find  it  very  difficult  to  answer  your  letter." 

But  after  that  neither  ideas  nor  phrases  had  come, 
and  she  had  fallen  thinking  of  the  events  of  the  day. 
She  had  decided  that  she  would  spend  the  next  morn- 
ing answering  advertisements  in  the  papers  that  abound- 
ed in  the  writing-room;  and  so,  after  half  an  hour's  pe- 
rusal of  back  numbers  of  the  Sketch  in  the  drawing-room, 
she  had  gone  to  bed. 

She  found  next  morning,  when  she  came  to  this 
advertisement  answering,  that  it  was  more  difficult 
than  she  had  supposed.  In  the  first  place  there  were 
not  so  many  suitable  advertisements  as  she  had  expect- 
ed. She  sat  down  by  the  paper-rack  with  a  general 
feeling  of  resemblance  to  Vivie  Warren,  and  looked 
through  the  Morning  Post  and  Standard  and  Tek  graph, 
and  afterward  the  half-penny  sheets.  The  Morning 
Post  was  hungry  for  governesses  and  nursery  governesses, 
but  held  out  no  other  hopes;  the  Daily  Telegraph  that 
morning  seemed  eager  only  for  skirt  hands.  She  went 
to  a  writing-desk  and  made  some  memoranda  on  a  sheet 
of  note-paper,  and  then  remembered  that  she  had  no 
address  as  yet  to  which  letters  could  be  sent. 

She  decided  to  leave  this  matter  until  the  morrow 
and  devote  the  morning  to  settling  up  with  Mr.  Man- 
no 


THE    FLIGHT   TO    LONDON 

ning.     At  the  cost  of  quite  a  number  of  torn  drafts  she 
succeeded  in  evolving  this: 

"  DEAR  MR.  MANNING, — 7  find-  it  very  difficult  to  answer 
your  letter.  I  hope  you  won't  mind  if  I  say  first  that  I 
think  it  does  me  an  extraordinary  honor  that  you  should 
think  of  any  one  like  myself  so  highly  and  seriously,  and, 
secondly,  that  I  wish  it  had  not  been  written" 

She  surveyed  this  sentence  for  some  time  before  going 
on.  "I  wonder,"  she  said,  "why  one  writes  him  sen- 
tences like  that?  It  '11  have  to  go,"  she  decided,  "I've 
written  too  many  already."  She  went  on,  with  a  des- 
perate attempt  to  be  easy  and  colloquial: 

"  You  see,  we  were  rather  good  friends,  I  thought,  and 
now  perhaps  it  will  be  difficult  for  us  to  get  back  to  the  old 
friendly  footing.  But  if  that  can  possibly  be  done  I  want 
it  to  be  done.  You  see,  the  plain  fact  of  the  case  is  that  I 
think  /  am  too  young  and  ignorant  for  marriage.  I  have 
been  thinking  these  things  over  lately,  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  marriage  for  a  girl  is  just  the  supremest  thing  in  life. 
It  isnjt  just  one  among  a  number  of  important  things;  for 
her  it  is  the  important  thing,  and  until  she  knows  far  more 
than  I  know  of  the  facts  of  life,  how  is  she  to  undertake  it? 
So  please,  if  you  will,  forget  that  you  wrote  that  letter,  and 
forgive  this  answer.  I  want  you  to  think  of  me  just  as  if 
I  was  a  man,  and  quite  outside  marriage  altogether. 

"7  do  hope  you  will  be  able  to  do  this,  because  I  value 
men  friends.  I  shall  be  very  sorry  if  I  cannot  have  you 
for  a  friend.  I  think  that  there  is  no  better  friend  for  a 
girl  than  a  man  rather  older  than  herself. 

in 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  Perhaps  by  this  time  you  will  have  heard  of  the  step 
I  have  taken  in  having  my  home.  Very  likely  you  will 
disapprove  highly  of  what  I  have  done — I  wonder?  You 
may,  perhaps,  think  I  have  done  it  just  in  a  fit  of  childish 
petulance  because  my  father  locked  me  in  when  I  wanted 
to  go  to  a  ball  of  which  he  did  not  approve.  But  really  it 
is  much  more  than  that.  At  Morningside  Park  I  feel  as 
though  all  my  growing  up  ivas  presently  to  stop,  as  though 
I  was  being  shut  in  from  the  light  of  life,  and,  as  they  say 
in  botany,  etiolated.  I  was  just  like  a  sort  of  dummy  that 
does  things  as  it  is  told — that  is  to  say,  as  the  strings  are 
pulled.  I  want  to  be  a  person  by  myself,  and  to  pull  my 
own  strings.  I  had  rather  have  trouble  and  hardship  like 
that  than  be  taken  care  of  by  others.  I  want  to  be  myself. 
I  wonder  if  a  man  can  quite  understand  that  passionate 
feeling?  It  is  quite  a  passionate  feeling.  So  I  am  al- 
ready no  longer  the  girl  you  knew  at  Morningside  Park. 
I  am  a  young  person  seeking  employment  and  freedom 
and  self -development,  just  as  in  quite  our  first  talk  of 
all  I  said  I  wanted  to  be. 

"7  do  hope  you  will  see  how  things  are,  and  not  be 
offended  with  me  or  frightfully  shocked  and  distressed 
by  what  I  have  done. 

"  Very  sincerely  yours, 

"ANN  VERONICA  STANLEY." 


§  6 


In  the  afternoon  she  resumed  her  search  for  apart- 
ments. The  intoxicating  sense  of  novelty  had  given 
place  to  a  more  business-like  mood.  She  drifted  north- 

112 


a 

I 


THE   FLIGHT   TO    LONDON 

ward  from  the  Strand,  and  came  on  some  queer  and 
dingy  quarters. 

She  had  never  imagined  life  was  half  so  sinister  as 
it  looked  to  her  in  the  beginning  of  these  investigations. 
She  found  herself  again  in  the  presence  of  some  element 
in  life  about  which  she  had  been  trained  not  to  think, 
about  which  she  was  perhaps  instinctively  indisposed 
to  think;  something  which  jarred,  in  spite  of  all  her 
mental  resistance,  with  all  her  preconceptions  of  a  clean 
and  courageous  girl  walking  out  from  Morningside  Park 
as  one  walks  out  of  a  cell  into  a  free  and  spacious  world. 
One  or  two  landladies  refused  her  with  an  air  of  conscious 
virtue  that  she  found  hard  to  explain.  "We  don't 
let  to  ladies,"  they  said. 

She  drifted,  via  Theobald's  Road,  obliquely  toward 
the  region  about  Titchfield  Street.  Such  apartments 
as  she  saw  were  either  scandalously  dirty  or  unaccount- 
ably dear,  or  both.  And  some  were  adorned  with  engrav- 
ings that  struck  her  as  being  more  vulgar  and  undesir- 
able than  anything  she  had  ever  seen  in  her  life.  Ann 
Veronica  loved  beautiful  things,  and  the  beauty  of 
un draped  loveliness  not  least  among  them;  but  these 
were  pictures  that  did  but  insist  coarsely  upon  the  round- 
ness of  women's  bodies.  The  windows  of  these  rooms 
were  obscured  with  draperies,  their  floors  a  carpet 
patchwork;  the  china  ornaments  on  their  mantels  were 
of  a  class  apart.  After  the  first  onset  several  of  the 
women  who  had  apartments  to  let  said  she  would  not 
do  for  them,  and  in  effect  dismissed  her.  This  also 
struck  her  as  odd. 

About  many  of  these  houses  hung  a  mysterious 
taint  as  of  something  weakly  and  commonly  and  dustily 


ANN    VERONICA 

evil;  the  women  who  negotiated  the  rooms  looked 
out  through  a  friendly  manner  as  though  it  was  a  mask, 
with  hard,  defiant  eyes.  Then  one  old  crone,  short- 
sighted and  shaky-handed,  called  Ann  Veronica  "dearie," 
and  made  some  remark,  obscure  and  slangy,  of  which 
the  spirit  rather  than  the  words  penetrated  to  her 
understanding. 

For  a  time  she  looked  at  no  more  apartments,  and 
walked  through  gaunt  and  ill-cleaned  streets,  through 
the  sordid  under  side  of  life,  perplexed  and  troubled, 
ashamed  of  her  previous  obtuseness.  She  had  some- 
thing of  the  feeling  a  Hindoo  must  experience  who  has 
been  into  surroundings  or  touched  something  that 
offends  his  caste.  She  passed  people  in  the  streets 
and  regarded  them  with  a  quickening  apprehension; 
once  or  twice  came  girls  dressed  in  slatternly  finery, 
going  toward  Regent  Street  from  out  these  places. 
It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  they  at  least  had  found  a 
way  of  earning  a  living,  and  had  that  much  economic 
superiority  to  herself.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  save 
for  some  accidents  of  education  and  character  they  had 
souls  like  her  own. 

For  a  time  Ann  Veronica  went  on  her  way  gauging 
the  quality  of  sordid  streets.  At  last,  a  little  way  to 
the  northward  of  Euston  Road,  the  moral  cloud  seemed 
to  lift,  the  moral  atmosphere  to  change;  clean  blinds 
appeared  in  the  windows,  clean  doorsteps  before  the 
doors,  a  different  appeal  in  the  neatly  placed  cards 
bearing  the  word 


APARTMENTS 
114 


THE   FLIGHT   TO   LONDON 

in  the  clear  bright  windows.  At  last  in  a  street  near 
the  Hampstead  Road  she  hit  upon  a  room  that  had 
an  exceptional  quality  of  space  and  order,  and  a  tall 
woman  with  a  kindly  face  to  show  it.  "You're  a 
student,  perhaps?"  said  the  tall  woman.  "At  the 
Tredgold  Women's  College,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  She 
felt  it  would  save  explanations  if  she  did  not  state  she 
had  left  her  home  and  was  looking  for  employment. 
The  room  was  papered  with  green,  large-patterned 
paper  that  was  at  worst  a  trifle  dingy,  and  the  arm-chair 
and  the  seats  of  the  other  chairs  were  covered  with  the 
unusual  brightness  of  a  large-patterned  chintz,  which 
also  supplied  the  window-curtain.  There  was  a  round 
table  covered,  not  with  the  usual  "tapestry"  cover, 
but  with  a  plain  green  cloth  that  went  passably  with  the 
wall-paper.  In  the  recess  beside  the  fireplace  were  some 
open  bookshelves.  The  carpet  was  a  quiet  drugget 
and  not  excessively  worn,  and  the  bed  in  the  corner 
was  covered  by  a  white  quilt.  There  were  neither 
texts  nor  rubbish  on  the  walls,  but  only  a  stirring 
version  of  Belshazzar's  feast,  a  steel  engraving  in  the 
early  Victorian  manner  that  had  some  satisfactory 
blacks.  And  the  woman  who  showed  this  room  was 
tall,  with  an  understanding  eye  and  the  quiet  manner 
of  the  well-trained  servant. 

Ann  Veronica  brought  her  luggage  in  a  cab  from  the 
hotel;  she  tipped  the  hotel  porter  sixpence  and  overpaid 
the  cabman  eighteenpence,  unpacked  some  of  her  books 
and  possessions,  and  so  made  the  room  a  little  homelike, 
and  then  sat  down  in  a  by  no  means  uncomfortable 
arm-chair  before  the  fire.  She  had  arranged  for  a  supper 
of  tea,  a  boiled  egg,  and  some  tinned  peaches.  She 


ANN    VERONICA 

had  discussed  the  general  question  of  supplies  with  the 
helpful  landlady.  "And  now,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
surveying  her  apartment  with  an  unprecedented  sense 
of  proprietorship,  "what  is  the  next  step?" 

She  spent  the  evening  in  writing — it  was  a  little 
difficult — to  her  father  and — which  was  easier — to 
the  Widgetts.  She  was  greatly  heartened  by  doing 
(this.  The  necessity  of  defending  herself  and  assuming 
a  confident  and  secure  tone  did  much  to  dispell  the 
sense  of  being  exposed  and  indefensible  in  a  huge 
dingy  world  that  abounded  in  sinister  possibilities. 
She  addressed  her  letters,  meditated  on  them  for  a 
time,  and  then  took  them  out  and  posted  them.  After- 
ward she  wanted  to  get  her  letter  to  her  father  back 
in  order  to  read  it  over  again,  and,  if  it  tallied  with  her 
general  impression  of  it,  re- write  it. 

He  would  know  her  address  to-morrow.  She  re- 
flected upon  that  with  a  thrill  of  terror  that  was  also, 
somehow,  in  some  faint  remote  way,  gleeful. 

"Dear  old  Daddy,"  she  said,  "he'll  make  a  fearful 
fuss.  Well,  it  had  to  happen  somewhen.  .  .  .  Somehow. 
I  wonder  what  he'll  say?" 


CHAPTER    THE    SIXTH 

EXPOSTULATIONS 
§   I 

THE  next  morning  opened  calmly,  and  Ann  Veronica 
sat  in  her  own  room,  her  very  own  room,  and  con- 
sumed an  egg  and  marmalade,  and  read  the  adver- 
tisements in  the  Daily  Telegraph.  Then  began  ex- 
postulations, preluded  by  a  telegram  and  headed  by  her 
aunt.  The  telegram  reminded  Ann  Veronica  that  she 
had  no  place  for  interviews  except  her  bed-sitting-room, 
and  she  sought  her  landlady  and  negotiated  hastily  for 
the  use  of  the  ground  floor  parlor,  which  very  fortunately 
was  vacant.  She  explained  she  was  expecting  an  im- 
portant interview,  and  asked  that  her  visitor  should  be 
duly  shown  in.  Her  aunt  arrived  about  half-past  ten, 
in  black  and  with  an  unusually  thick  spotted  veil.  She 
raised  this  with  the  air  of  a  conspirator  unmasking *#nd 
displayed  a  tear-flushed  face.  For  a  moment  she  re- 
mained silent. 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  when  she  could  get  her  breath, 
"you  must  come  home  at  once." 

Ann  Veronica  closed  the  door  quite  softly  and  stood 
still. 

"This  has  almost  killed  your  father.  .  .  .  After  Gwen!" 
117 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I  sent  a  telegram." 

"  He  cares  so  much  for  you.     He  did  so  care  for  you." 

"I  sent  a  telegram  to  say  I  was  all  right." 

"All  right!  And  I  never  dreamed  anything  of  the 
sort  was  going  on.  I  had  no  idea!"  She  sat  down 
abruptly  and  threw  her  wrists  limply  upon  the  table. 
"Oh,  Veronica!"  she  said,  "to  leave  your  home!" 

She  had  been  weeping.  She  was  weeping  now.  Ann 
Veronica  was  overcome  by  this  amount  of  emotion. 

"Why  did  you  do  it?"  her  aunt  urged.  "Why  could 
you  not  confide  in  us?" 

"Do  what?"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"What  you  have  done." 

"But  what  have  I  done?" 

"Elope!  Go  off  in  this  way.  We  had  no  idea.  We 
had  such  a  pride  in  you,  such  hope  in  you.  I  had  no 
idea  you  were  not  the  happiest  girl.  Everything  I  could 
do!  Your  father  sat  up  all  night.  Until  at  last  I  per- 
suaded him  to  go  to  bed.  He  wanted  to  put  on  his  over- 
coat and  come  after  you  and  look  for  you — in  London. 
We  made  sure — it  was  just  like  Gwen.  Only  Gwen  left 
a  letter — on  the  pincushion.  You  didn't  even  do  that, 
Vee;  not  even  that." 

"I  sent  a  telegram,  aunt,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

' '  Like  a  stab .     You  didn't  even  put  the  twelve  words. ' ' 

"I  said  I  was  all  right." 

"Gwen  said  she  was  happy.  Before  that  came  your 
father  didn't  even  know  you  were  gone.  He  was  just 
getting  cross  about  your  being  late  for  dinner — you  know 
his  way — when  it  came.  He  opened  it — just  off-hand, 
and  then  when  he  saw  what  it  was  he  hit  at  the  table  and 
sent  his  soup  spoon  flying  and  splashing  on  to  the  table- 

118 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

cloth.  'My  God  I'  he  said,  'I'll  go  after  them  and  kill 
him.  I'll  go  after  them  and  kill  him.'  For  the  moment 
I  thought  it  was  a  telegram  from  Gwen." 

"But  what  did  father  imagine?" 

' '  Of  course  he  imagined !  Any  one  would !  '  What  has 
happened,  Peter?'  I  asked.  He  was  standing  up  with 
the  telegram  crumpled  in  his  hand.  He  used  a  most 
awful  word!  Then  he  said,  'It's  Ann  Veronica  gone  to 
join  her  sister!'  'Gone!'  I  said.  'Gone!'  he  said. 
x'Read  that,'  and  threw  the  telegram  at  me,  so  that  it 
went  into  the  tureen.  He  swore  when  I  tried  to  get  it 
out  with  the  ladle,  and  told  me  what  it  said.  Then  he 
sat  down  again  in  a  chair  and  said  that  people  who 
wrote  novels  ought  to  be  strung  up.  It  was  as  much  as 
I  could  do  to  prevent  him  flying  out  of  the  house  there 
and  then  and  coming  after  you.  Never  since  I  was  a 
girl  have  I  seen  your  father  so  moved.  'Oh!  little  Vee!' 
he  cried,  'little  Vee!'  and  put  his  face  between  his  hands 
and  sat  still  for  a  long  time  before  he  broke  out  again." 

Ann  Veronica  had  remained  standing  while  her  aunt 
spoke. 

"Do  you  mean,  aunt,"  she  asked,  "that  my  father 
thought  I  had  gone  off — with  some  man?" 

"What  else  could  he  think?  Would  any  one  dream 
you  would  be  so  mad  as  to  go  off  alone?" 

"After — after  what  had  happened  the  night  before?" 

"Oh,  why  raise  up  old  scores?  If  you  could  see  him 
this  morning,  his  poor  face  as  white  as  a  sheet  and  all 
cut  about  with  shaving!  He  was  for  coming  up  by  the 
very  first  train  and  looking  for  you,  but  I  said  to  him, 
'Wait  for  the  letters,'  and  there,  sure  enough,  was  yours. 
He  could  hardly  open  the  envelope,  he  trembled  so. 

119 


ANN    VERONICA 

Then  he  threw  the  letter  at  me.  '  Go  and  fetch  her  home,' 
he  said;  'it  isn't  what  we  thought!  It's  just  a  practical 
joke  of  hers.'  And  with  that  he  went  off  to  the  City, 
stern  and  silent,  leaving  his  bacon  on  his  plate — a  great 
slice  of  bacon  hardly  touched.  No  breakfast  he's  had; 
no  dinner,  hardly  a  mouthful  of  soup — since  yesterday 
at  tea." 

She  stopped.  Aunt  and  niece  regarded  each  other 
silently. 

"You  must  come  home  to  him  at  once,"  said  Miss 
Stanley. 

Ann  Veronica  looked  down  at  her  fingers  on  the  claret- 
colored  table-cloth.  Her  aunt  had  summoned  up  an 
altogether  too  vivid  picture  of  her  father  as  the  masterful 
man,  overbearing,  emphatic,  sentimental,  noisy,  aimless. 
Why  on  earth  couldn't  he  leave  her  to  grow  in  her  own 
way?  Her  pride  rose  at  the  bare  thought  of  return. 
"I  don't  think  I  can  do  that,"  she  said.  She  looked  up 
and  said,  a  little  breathlessly,  "I'm  sorry,  aunt,  but  I 
don't  think  I  can." 


§  2 


Then  it  was  the  expostulations  really  began. 

From  first  to  last,  on  this  occasion,  her  aunt  ex- 
postulated for  about  two  hours.  "But,  my  dear,"  she 
began,  "it  is  Impossible!  It  is  quite  out  of  the  Ques- 
tion. You  simply  can't."  And  to  that,  through  vast 
rhetorical  meanderings,  she  clung.  It  reached  her  only 
slowly  that  Ann  Veronica  was  standing  to  her  resolution. 
"How  will  you  live?"  she  appealed.  "Think  of  what 
people  will  say!"  That  became  a  refrain.  "Think  of 

120 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

what  Lady  Palsworthy  will  say!  Think  of  what" — • 
So-and-so — "will  say!  What  are  we  to  tell  people? 

"Besides,  what  am  I  to  tell  your  father?" 

At  first  it  had  not  been  at  all  clear  to  Ann  Veronica 
that  she  would  refuse  to  return  home ;  she  had  had  some 
dream  of  a  capitulation  that  should  leave  her  an  enlarged 
and  defined  freedom,  but  as  her  aunt  put  this  aspect 
and  that  of  her  flight  to  her,  as  she  wandered  illogically 
and  inconsistently  from  one  urgent  consideration  to  an- 
other, as  she  mingled  assurances  and  aspects  and  emo- 
tions, it  became  clearer  and  clearer  to  the  girl  that  there 
could  be  little  or  no  change  in  the  position  of  things  if 
she  returned.  "And  what  will  Mr.  Manning  think?" 
said  her  aunt. 

"I  don't  care  what  any  one  thinks,"  said  Ann  Ve- 
ronica. 

"I  can't  imagine  what  has  come  over  you,"  said  her 
aunt.  "  I  can't  conceive  what  you  want.  You  foolish 
girl!" 

Ann  Veronica  took  that  in  silence.  At  the  back  of 
her  mind,  dim  and  yet  disconcerting,  was  the  perception 
that  she  herself  did  not  know  what  she  wanted.  And 
yet  she  knew  it  was  not  fair  to  call  her  a  foolish 
girl. 

"Don't  you  care  for  Mr.  Manning?"  said  her  aunt. 

"I  don't  see  what  he  has  to  do  with  my  coming  to 
London?" 

"  He  —  he  worships  the  ground  you  tread  on.  You 
don't  deserve  it,  but  he  does.  Or  at  least  he  did  the 
day  before  yesterday.  And  here  you  are!" 

Her  aunt  opened  all  the  fingers  of  her  gloved  hand 
in  a  rhetorical  gesture.  "  It  seems  to  me  all  madness — 

121 


ANN   VERONICA 

madness!    Just  because  your  father— wouldn't  let  you 

disobey  him!")   4 
i"  / 

§3 

In  the  afternoon  the  task  of  expostulation  was  taken 
up  by  Mr.  Stanley  in  person.  Her  father's  ideas  of 
expostulation  were  a  little  harsh  and  forcible,  and  over 
the  claret-colored  table-cloth  and  under  the  gas  chan- 
delier, with  his  hat  and  umbrella  between  them  like 
the  mace  in  Parliament,  he  and  his  daughter  contrived 
to  have  a  violent  quarrel.  She  had  intended  to  be 
quietly  dignified,  but  he  was  in  a  smouldering  rage  from 
the  beginning,  and  began  by  assuming,  which  alone  was 
more  than  flesh  and  blood  could  stand,  that  the  insur- 
rection was  over  and  that  she  was  coming  home  sub- 
missively. In  his  desire  to  be  emphatic  and  to  avenge 
himself  for  his  over-night  distresses,  he  speedily  became 
brutal,  more  brutal  than  she  had  ever  known  him  before. 

"A  nice  time  of  anxiety  you've  given  me,  young 
lady,"  he  said,  as  he  entered  the  room.  "  I  hope  you're 
satisfied." 

She  was  frightened — his  anger  always  did  frighten 
her — and  in  her  resolve  to  conceal  her  fright  she  carried 
a  queen-like  dignity  to  what  she  felt  even  at  the  time 
was  a  preposterous  pitch.  She  said  she  hoped  she  had 
not  distressed  him  by  the  course  she  had  felt  obliged 
to  take,  and  he  told  her  not  to  be  a  fool.  She  tried  to 
keep  her  side  up  by  declaring  that  he  had  put  her  into 
an  impossible  position,  and  he  replied  by  shouting, 
"  Nonsense !  Nonsense !  Any  father  in  my  place  would 
have  done  what  I  did." 

122 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

Then  he  went  on  to  say:  "Well,  you've  had  your  lit- 
tle adventure,  and  I  hope  now  you've  had  enough  of  it. 
So  go  up-stairs  and  get  your  things  together  while  I 
look  out  for  a  hansom." 

To  which  the  only  possible  reply  seemed  to  be,  "I'm 
not  coming  home." 

"Not  coming  home!" 

"No!"     And,  in  spite  of  her  resolve  to  be  a  Person, 
Ann  Veronica  began   to  weep  with  terror  at  herself.) 
Apparently  she  was  always  doomed  to  weep  when  she 
talked  to  her  father.     But  he  was  always  forcing  her  to.. 
say  and  do  such  unexpectedly  conclusive  things.     She 
feared  he  might  take  her  tears  as  a  sign  of  weakness. 
So  she  said:   " I  won't  come  home.     I'd  rather  starve!" 

For  a  moment  the  conversation  hung  upon  that 
declaration.  Then  Mr.  Stanley,  putting  his  hands  on 
the  table  in  the  manner  rather  of  a  barrister  than  a 
solicitor,  and  regarding  her  balefully  through  his  glasses 
with  quite  undisguised  animosity,  asked,  "And  may  I 
presume  to  inquire,  then,  what  you  mean  to  do? — how 
do  you  propose  to  live?" 

"I  shall  live,"  sobbed  Ann  Veronica.  "You  needn't 
be  anxious  about  that!  I  shall  contrive  to  live." 

"But  I  am  anxious,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  "I  am  anx- 
ious. Do  you  think  it's  nothing  to  me  to  have  my 
daughter  running  about  London  looking  for  odd  jobs 
and  disgracing  herself?" 

"Sha'n't  get  odd  jobs,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  wiping 
her  eyes. 

And  from  that  point  they  went  on  to  a  thoroughly 
embittering  wrangle.  Mr.  Stanley  used  his  authority, 
and  commanded  Ann  Veronica  to  come  home,  to  which, 

9  123 


ANN    VERONICA 

of  course,  she  said  she  wouldn't;  and  then  he  warned 
her  not  to  defy  him,  warned  her  very  solemnly,  and  then 
commanded  her  again.  He  then  said  that  if  she  would 
not  obey  him  in  this  course  she  should  "never  darken 
his  doors  again,"  and  was,  indeed,  frightfully  abusive. 
This  threat  terrified  Ann  Veronica  so  much  that  she 
declared  with  sobs  and  vehemence  that  she  would  never 
come  home  again,  and  for  a  time  both  talked  at  once 
and  very  wildly.  He  asked  her  whether  she  understood 
what  she  was  saying,  and  went  on  to  say  still  more 
precisely  that  she  should  never  touch  a  penny  of  his 
money  until  she  came  home  again — not  one  penny. 
Ann  Veronica  said  she  didn't  care. 

Then  abruptly  Mr.  Stanley  changed  his  key.  "You 
poor  child!"  he  said;  "don't  you  see  the  infinite  folly 
of  these  proceedings?  Think!  Think  of  the  love  and 
affection  you  abandon!  Think  of  your  aunt,  a  sec- 
ond mother  to  you.  Think  if  your  own  mother  was 
alive!" 

He  paused,  deeply  moved. 

"  If  my  own  mother  was  alive,"  sobbed  Ann  Veronica, 
"she  would  understand." 

The  talk  became  more  and  more  inconclusive  and  ex- 
hausting. Ann  Veronica  found  herself  incompetent, 
undignified,  and  detestable,  holding  on  desperately  to  a 
hardening  antagonism  to  her  father,  quarrelling,  with 
him,  wrangling  with  him,  thinking  of  repartees — almost 
as  if  he  was  a  brother.  It  was  horrible,  but  what  could 
she  do  ?  She  meaniTfo  live  her  own  life,  and  he  meant, 
with  contempt  and  insults,  to  prevent  her.  Anything 
else  that  was  said  she  now  regarded  only  as  an  aspect  of 
or  diversion  from  that. 

124 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

In  the  retrospect  she  was  amazed  to  think  how  things 
had  gone  to  pieces,  for  at  the  outset  she  had  been  quite 
prepared  to  go  home  again  upon  terms.  While  waiting 
for  his  coming  she  had  stated  her  present  and  future 
relations  with  him  with  what  had  seemed  to  her  the 
most  satisfactory  lucidity  and  completeness.  She  had 
looked  forward  to  an  explanation.  Instead  had  come 
this  storm,  this  shouting,  this  weeping,  this  confusion 
of  threats  and  irrelevant  appeals.'  It  was  not  only  that 
her  father  had  said  all  sorts  of  inconsistent  and  unrea- 
sonable things,  but  that  by  some  incomprehensible  in- 
fection she  herself  had  replied  in  the  same  vein.  He 
had  assumed  that  her  leaving  home  was  the  point  at 
issue,  that  everything  turned  on  that,  and  that  the  sole 
alternative  was  obedience,  and  she  had  fallen  in  with 
that  assumption  until  rebellion  seemed  a  sacred  prin- 
ciple. Moreover,  atrociously  and  inexorably,  he  allowed 
it  to  appear  ever  and  again  in  horrible  gleams  that  he 
suspected  there  was  some  man  in  the  case.  .  .  .  Some 
man! 

And  to  conclude  it  all  was  the  figure  of  her  father  in 
the  doorway,  giving  her  a  last  chance,  his  hat  in  one 
hand,  his  umbrella  in  the  other,  shaken  at  her  to  em- 
phasize his  point. 

"You  understand,  then,"  he  was  saying,  "you  under- 
stand?" 

"I  understand,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  tear-wet  and 
flushed  with  a  reciprocal  passion,  but  standing  up  to 
him  with  an  equality  that  amazed  even  herself,  "I 
understand."  She  controlled  a  sob.  "Not  a  pen- 
ny—  not  one  penny  —  and  never  darken  your  doors 
again!" 

125 


ANN   VERONICA 

§  4 

The  next  day  her  aunt  came  again  and  expostulated, 
and  was  just  saying  it  was  "an  unheard-of  thing"  for  a 
girl  to  leave  her  home  as  Ann  Veronica  had  done,  when 
her  father  arrived,  and  was  shown  in  by  the  pleasant- 
faced  landlady. 

Her  father  had  determined  on  a  new  line.  He  put 
down  his  hat  and  umbrella,  rested  his  hands  on  his  hips, 
and  regarded  Ann  Veronica  firmly. 

"Now,"  he  said,  quietly,  "it's  time  we  stopped  this 
nonsense." 

Ann  Veronica  was  about  to  reply,  when  he  went  on, 
with  a  still  more  deadly  quiet:  "I  am  not  here  to  bandy 
words  with  you.  Let  us  have  no  more  of  this  humbug. 
You  are  to  come  home." 

"I  thought  I  explained—" 

"I  don't  think  you  can  have  heard  me,"  said  her 
father;  "I  have  told  you  to  come  home." 

"I  thought  I  explained—" 

"Come  home!" 

Ann  Veronica  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"Very  well,"  said  her  father. 

"I  think  this  ends  the  business,"  he  said,  turning  to 
his  sister.  "It's  not  for  us  to  supplicate  any  more. 
She  must  learn  wisdom — as  God  pleases." 

"But,  my  dear  Peter!"  said  Miss  Stanley. 

"No,"  said  her  brother,  conclusively,  "it's  not  for  a 
parent  to  go  on  persuading  a  child." 

Miss  Stanley  rose  and  regarded  Ann  Veronica  fixedly. 
The  girl  stood  with  her  hands  behind  her  back,  sulky, 
resolute,  and  intelligent,  a  strand  of  her  black  hair  over 

126 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

one  eye  and  looking  more  than  usually  delicate- featured, 
and  more  than  ever  like  an  obdurate  child. 

"She  doesn't  know." 

"She  does." 

"I  can't  imagine  what  makes  you  fly  out  against  every- 
thing like  this,"  said  Miss  Stanley  to  her  niece. 

"What  is  the  good  of  talking?"  said  her  brother. 
"  She  must  go  her  own  way.  A  man's  children  nowadays 
are  not  his  own.  That's  the  fact  of  the  matter.  Their 
minds  are  turned  against  him.  .  .  .  Rubbishy  novels  and 
pernicious  rascals.  We  can't  even  protect  them  from 
themselves."  ) 

An  immense  gulf  seemed  to  open  between  father  and 
daughter  as  he  said  these  words. 

"  I  don't  see,"  gasped  Ann  Veronica,  "why  parents  and 
children  .  .  .  shouldn't  be  friends." 

"Friends!"  said  her  father.  "When  we  see  you  going 
through  disobedience  to  the  devil!  Come,  Molly,  she 
must  go  her  own  way.  I've  tried  to  use  my  authority. 
And  she  defies  me.  What  more  is  there  to  be  said? 
She  defies  me!" 

It  was  extraordinary.  Ann  Veronica  felt  suddenly  an 
effect  of  tremendous  pathos;  she  would  have  given  any- 
thing to  have  been  able  to  frame  and  make  some  appeal, 
some  utterance  that  should  bridge  this  bottomless  chasm 
that  had  opened  between  her  and  her  father,  and  she 
could  find  nothing  whatever  to  say  that  was  in  the  least 
sincere  and  appealing. 

"Father,"  she  cried,  "I  have  to  live!" 

He  misunderstood  her.  "That,"  he  said,  grimly,  with 
his  hand  on  the  door-handle,  "must  be  your  own  affair, 
unless  you  choose  to  live  at  Morningside  Park." 

127 


ANN    VERONICA 

Miss  Stanley  turned  to  her.  "Vee,"  she  said,  "come 
home.  Before  it  is  too  late." 

"Come,  Molly,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  at  the  door. 

"Vee!"  said  Miss  Stanley,  "you  hear  what  your  father 
says!" 

Miss  Stanley  struggled  with  emotion.  She  made  a 
curious  movement  toward  her  niece,  then  suddenly,  con- 
vulsively, she  dabbed  down  something  lumpy  on  the 
table  and  turned  to  follow  her  brother.  Ann  Veronica 
stared  for  a  moment  in  amazement  at  this  dark-green  ob- 
ject that  clashed  as  it  was  put  down.  It  was  a  purse. 
S,he  made  a  step  forward.  "  Aunt!"  she  said,  "  I  can't — ' 

Then  she  caught  a  wild  appeal  in  her  aunt's  blue  eye, 
halted,  and  the  door  clicked'  upon  them. 

There  was  a  pause,  and  then  the  front  door  slammed. . . . 

Ann  Veronica  realized  that  she  was  alone  with  the 
world.  And  this  time  the  departure  had  a  tremendous 
effect  of  finality.  She  had  to  resist  an  impulse  of  sheer 
terror,  to  run  out  after  them  and  give  in. 

"Gods,"  she  said,  at  last,  "I've  done  it  this  time! 

"  Well!"  She  took  up  the  neat  morocco  purse,  opened 
it,  and  examined  the  contents. 

It  contained  three  sovereigns,  six  and  fourpence,  two 
postage  stamps,  a  small  key,  and  her  aunt's  return  half 
^ticket  to  Morningside  Park. 


8S 

After  the  interview  Ann  Veronica  considered  her- 
self formally  cut  off  from  home.  If  nothing  else  had 
clinched  that,  the  purse  had.  Nevertheless  there  came 

128 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

a  residuum  of  expostulations.  Her  brother  Roddy,  who 
was  in  the  motor  line,  came  to  expostulate;  her  sister 
Alice  wrote.  And  Mr.  Manning  called. 

Her  sister  Alice  seemed  to  have  developed  a  religious 
sense  away  there  in  Yorkshire,  and  made  appeals  that 
had  no  meaning  for  Ann  Veronica's  mind.  She  exhorted 
Ann  Veronica  not  to  become  one  of  "those  unsexed 
intellectuals,  neither  man  nor  woman." 

Ann  Veronica  meditated  over  that  phrase.  "That's 
him,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  in  sound,  idiomatic  English. 
"Poor  old  Alice!" 

Her  brother  Roddy  came  to  her  and  demanded  tea, 
and  asked  her  to  state  a  case.  "Bit  thick  on  the  old 
man,  isn't  it?"  said  Roddy,  who  had  developed  a  bluff, 
straightforward  style  in  the  motor  shop. 

"  Mind  my  smoking  ?"  said  Roddy.  "  I  don't  see  quite 
what  your  game  is,  Vee,  but  I  suppose  you've  got  a 
game  on  somewhere. 

"Rummy  lot  we  are!"  said  Roddy.  "Alice — Alice 
gone  dotty,  and  all  over  kids.  Gwen — I  saw  Gwen  the 
other  day,  and  the  paint 's  thicker  than  ever.  Jim  is  up 
to  the  neck  in  Mahatmas  and  Theosophy  and  Higher 
Thought  and  rot — writes  letters  worse  than  Alice.  And 
now  you're  on  the  war-path.  I  believe  I'm  the  only 
sane  member  of  the  family  left.  The  G.V.'s  as  mad  as 
any  of  you,  in  spite  of  all  his  respectability;  not  a  bit  of 
him  straight  anywhere,  not  one  bit." 

"Straight?" 

"Not  a  bit  of  it!  He's  been  out  after  eight  per 
cent,  since  the  beginning.  Eight  per  cent.!  He'll 
come  a  cropper  one  of  these  days,  if  you  ask  me.  He's 
been  near  it  once  or  twice  already.  That's  got  his 

129 


ANN    VERONICA 

nerves  to  rags.  I  suppose  we're  all  human  beings 
really,  but  what  price  the  sacred  Institution  of  the 
Family!  Us  as  a  bundle!  Eh?  ...  I  don't  half  dis- 
agree with  you,  Vee,  really;  only  thing  is,  I  don't  see 
how  you're  going  to  pull  it  off.  A  home  may  be  a  sort 
of  cage,  but  still — it's  a  home.  Gives  you  a  right  to  hang 
on  to  the  old  man  until  he  busts — practically.  Jolly 
hard  life  for  a  girl,  getting  a  living.  Not  my  affair." 

He  asked  questions  and  listened  to  her  views  for 
a  time. 

"I'd  chuck  this  lark  right  off  if  I  were  you,  Vee," 
he  said.  "I'm  five  years  older  than  you,  and  no  end 
wiser,  being  a  man.  What  you're  after  is  too  risky. 
It's  a  damned  hard  thing  to  do.  It's  all  very  handsome 
starting  out  on  your  own,  but  it's  too  damned  hard. 
That's  my  opinion,  if  you  ask  me.  There's  nothing  a 
girl  can  do  that  isn't  sweated  to  the  bone.  You  square 
the  G.V.,  and  go  home  before  you  have  to.  That's 
my  advice.  If  you  don't  eat  humble-pie  now  you  may 
live  to  fare  worse  later.  /  can't  help  you  a  cent.  Life's 
hard  enough  nowadays  for  an  unprotected  male.  Let 
alone  a  girl.  You  got  to  take  the  world  as  it  is,  and 
the  only  possible  trade  for  a  girl  that  isn't  sweated  is 
to  get  hold  of  a  man  and  make  him  do  it  for  her.  It's 
no  good  flying  out  at  that,  Vee;  /  didn't  arrange  it.  It's 
Providence.  That's  how  things  are;  that's  the  order 
of  the  world.  Like  appendicitis.  It  isn't  pretty,  but 
we're  made  so.  Rot,  no  doubt;  but  we  can't  alter  it. 
You  go  home  and  live  on  the  G.V.,  and  get  some  other 
man  to  live  on  as  soon  as  possible.  It  isn't  sentiment, 
but  it's  horse  sense.  All  this  Woman-who-Diddery — 
no  damn  good.  After  all,  old  P. — Providence,  I  mean— 

130 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

|  has  arranged  it  so  that  men  will  keep  you,  more  or  less. 
He  made  the  universe  on  those  lines.  You've  got  to 
take  what  you  can  get." 

That  was  the  quintessence  of  her  brother  Roddy. 

He  played  variations  on  this  theme  for  the  better 
part  of  an  hour. 

"You  go  home,"  he  said,  at  parting;  "you  go  home. 
It's  all  very  fine  and  all  that,  Vee,  this  freedom,  but 
it  isn't  going  to  work.  The  world  isn't  ready  for  girls 
to  start  out  on  their  own  yet;  that's  the  plain  fact  of  the 
case.  Babies  and  females  have  got  to  keep  hold  of 
somebody  or  go  under — anyhow,  for  the  next  few  genera- 
tions. You  go  home  and  wait  a  century,  Vee,  and  then 
try  again.  Then  you  may  have  a  bit  of  a  chance. 
Now  you  haven't  the  ghost  of  one — not  if  you  play  the 
game  fair." 

§  6 

It  was  remarkable  to  Ann  Veronica  how  completely 
Mr.  Manning,  in  his  entirely  different  dialect,  indorsed 
her  brother  Roddy's  view  of  things.  He  came  along, 
he  said,  just  to  call,  with  large,  loud  apologies,  radiantly 
kind  and  good.  Miss  Stanley,  it  was  manifest,  had 
given  him  Ann  Veronica's  address.  The  kindly  faced 
landlady  had  failed  to  catch  his  name,  and  said  he  was 
a  tall,  handsome  gentleman  with  a  great  black  mustache. 
Ann  Veronica,  with  a  sigh  at  the  cost  of  hospitality, 
made  a  hasty  negotiation  for  an  extra  tea  and  for  a 
fire  in  the  ground-floor  apartment,  and  preened  herself 
carefully  for  the  interview.  In  the  little  apartment, 
under  the  gas  chandelier,  his  inches  and  his  stoop  were 


ANN    VERONICA 

certainly  very  effective.  In  the  bad  light  he  looked 
at  once  military  and  sentimental  and  studious,  like  one 
of  Ouida's  guardsmen  revised  by  Mr.  Haldane-  and  the 
London  School  of  Economics  and  finished  in  the  Keltic 
school. 

"It's  unforgivable  of  me  to  call,  Miss  Stanley,"  he 
said,  shaking  hands  in  a  peculiar,  high,  fashionable 
manner ;  "  but  you  know  you  said  we  might  be  friends. ' ' 

"It's  dreadful  for  you  to  be  here,"  he  said,  indicating 
the  yellow  presence  of  the  first  fog  of  the  year  without, 
"  but  your  aunt  told  me  something  of  what  had  happened. 
It's  just  like  your  Splendid  Pride  to  do  it.  Quite!" 

He  sat  in  the  arm-chair  and  took  tea,  and  consumed 
several  of  the  extra  cakes  which  she  had  sent  out  for, 
and  talked  to  her  and  expressed  himself,  looking  very 
earnestly  at  her  with  his  deep-set  eyes,  and  carefully 
avoiding  any  crumbs  on  his  mustache  the  while.  Ann 
Veronica  sat  firelit  by  her  tea-tray  with,  quite  un- 
consciously, the  air  of  an  expert  hostess. 

"But  how  is  it  all  going  to  end?"  said  Mr.  Manning. 

"Your  father,  of  course,"  he  said,  "must  come  to 
realize  just  how  Splendid  you  are!  He  doesn't  under- 
stand. I've  seen  him,  and  he  doesn't  a  bit  understand. 
/  didn't  understand  before  that  letter.  It  makes  me 
want  to  be  just  everything  I  can  be  to  you.  You're 
like  some  splendid  Princess  in  Exile  in  these  Dreadful 
Dingy  apartments!" 

"  I'm  afraid  I'm  anything  but  a  Princess  when  it 
comes  to  earning  a  salary,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "But, 
frankly,  I  mean  to  fight  this  through  if  I  possibly  can." 

"  My  God! "  said  Manning,  in  a  stage-aside.  "  Earning 
a  salary!" 

132 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

"You're  like  a  Princess  in  Exile!"  he  repeated, 
overruling  her.  "  You  come  into  these  sordid  surround- 
ings— you  mustn't  mind  my  calling  them  sordid — 
and  it  makes  them  seem  as  though  they  didn't  matter. 
...  I  don't  think  they  do  matter.  I  don't  think  any 
surroundings  could  throw  a  shadow  on  you." 

Ann  Veronica  felt  a  slight  embarrassment.  "Won't 
you  have  some  more  tea,  Mr.  Manning?"  she  asked. 

"You  know,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  relinquishing  his 
cup  without  answering  her  question,  "when  I  hear  you 
talk  of  earning  a  living,  it's  as  if  I  heard  of  an  arch- 
angel going  on  the  Stock  Exchange  —  or  Christ  selling 
doves.  .  .  .  Forgive  my  daring.  I  couldn't  help  the 
thought." 

"It's  a  very  good  image,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  I  knew  you  wouldn't  mind." 

"But  does  it  correspond  with  the  facts  of  the  case ? 
You  know,  Mr.  Manning,  all  this  sort  of  thing  is  very 
well  as  sentiment,  but  does  it  correspond  with  the 
realities?  Are  women  truly  such  angelic  things  and 
men  so  chivalrous?  You  men  have,  I  know,  meant  to 
make  us  Queens  and  Goddesses,  but  in  practice — well, 
look,  for  example,  at  the  stream  of  girls  one  meets  going 
to  work  of  a  morning,  round-shouldered,  cheap,  and 
underfed!  They  aren't  queens,  and  no  one  is  treating 
them  as  queens.  And  look,  again,  at  the  women  one 
finds  letting  lodgings.  ...  I  was  looking  for  rooms  last 
week.  It  got  on  my  nerves — the  women  I  saw.  Worse 
than  any  man.  Everywhere  I  went  and  rapped  at  a 
door  I  found  behind  it  another  dreadful  dingy  woman — 
another  fallen  queen,  I  suppose — dingier  than  the  last, 
dirty,  you  know,  in  grain.  Their  poor  hands!" 

133 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I  know,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  with  entirely  suitable 
emotion. 

"  And  think  of  the  ordinary  wives  and  mothers,  with 
their  anxiety,  their  limitations,  their  swarms  of  children ! " 

Mr.  Manning  displayed  distress.  He  fended  these 
things  off  from  him  with  the  rump  of  his  fourth  piece 
of  cake.  "I  know  that  our  social  order  is  dreadful 
enough,"  he  said,  "and  sacrifices  all  that  is  best  and 
most  beautiful  in  life.  I  don't  defend  it." 

"And  besides,  when  it  comes  to  the  idea  of  queens," 
Ann  Veronica  went  on,  "  there's  twenty-one  and  a  half 
million  women  to  twenty  million  men.  Suppose  our 
proper  place  is  a  shrine.  Still,  that  leaves  over  a  million 
shrines  short,  not  reckoning  widows  who  re-marry.  And 
more  boys  die  than  girls,  so  that  the  real  disproportion 
among  adults  is  even  greater." 

"I  know,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  "I  know  these  Dreadful 
Statistics.  I  know  there's  a  sort  of  right  in  your  im- 
patience at  the  slowness  of  Progress.  But  tell  me  one 
thing  I  don't  understand — tell  me  one  thing:  How 
can  you  help  it  by  coming  down  into  the  battle  and  the 
mire?  That's  the  thing  that  concerns  me." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  trying  to  help  it,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 
"I'm  only  arguing  against  your  position  of  what  a 
woman  should  be,  and  trying  to  get  it  clear  in  my  own 
mind.  I'm  in  this  apartment  and  looking  for  work 
because —  Well,  what  else  can  I  do,  when  my  father 
practically  locks  me  up?" 

"I  know,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  "I  know.  Don't  think 
I  can't  sympathize  and  understand.  Still,  here  we  are 
in  this  dingy,  foggy  city.  Ye  gods!  what  a  wilderness 
it  is!  Every  one  trying  to  get  the  better  of  every  one, 


EXPOSTULATIONS 

every  one  regardless  of  every  one — it's  one  of  those 
days  when  every  one  bumps  against  you — every  one 
pouring  coal  smoke  into  the  air  and  making  confusion 
worse  confounded,  motor  omnibuses  clattering  and 
smelling,  a  horse  down  in  the  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
an  old  woman  at  the  corner  coughing  dreadfully — all 
the  painful  sights  of  a  great  city,  and  here  you  come 
into  it  to  take  your  chances.  It's  too  valiant,  Miss 
Stanley,  too  valiant  altogether!" 

Ann  Veronica  meditated.  She  had  had  two  days  of 
employment-seeking  now.  "  I  wonder  if  it  is." 

"  It  isn't,"  said  Mr.  Manning,  "  that  I  mind  Courage  in 
a  Woman — I  love  and  admire  Courage.  What  could  be 
more  splendid  than  a  beautiful  girl  facing  a  great,  glori- 
ous tiger?  Una  and  the  Lion  again,  and  all  that!  But 
this  isn't  that  sort  of  thing;  this  is  just  a  great,  ugly,  end- 
less wilderness  of  selfish,  sweating,  vulgar  competition!" 

"That  you  want  to  keep  me  out  of?" 

"Exactly!"  said  Mr.  Manning. 

"In  a  sort  of  beautiful  garden-close — wearing  lovely 
dresses  and  picking  beautiful  flowers?" 

"Ah!     If  one  could!" 

"While  those  other  girls  trudge  to  business  and  those 
other  women  let  lodgings.  And  in  reality  even  that 
magic  garden-close  resolves  itself  into  a  villa  at  Morn- 
ingside  Park  and  my  father  being  more  and  more  cross 
and  overbearing  at  meals — and  a  general  feeling  of  in- 
security and  futility." 

Mr.  Manning  relinquished  his  cup,  and  looked  mean- 
ingly at  Ann  Veronica.  "There,"  he  said,  "you  don't 
treat  me  fairly,  Miss  Stanley.  My  garden-close  would 
be  a  better  thing  than  that." 


CHAPTER    THE    SEVENTH 

IDEALS    AND    A   REALITY 
§   I 

AMD  now  for  some  weeks  Ann  Veronica  was  to  test 
her  market  value  in  the  world.  She  went  about  in 
a  negligent  November  London  that  had  become  very 
dark  and  foggy  and  greasy  and  forbidding  indeed,  and 
tried  to  find  that  modest  but  independent  employment 
she  had  so  rashly  assumed.  She  went  about,  intent- 
looking  and  self-possessed,  trim  and  fine,  concealing  her 
emotions  whatever  they  were,  as  the  realities  of  her 
position  opened  out  before  her.  Her  little  bed-sitting- 
room  was  like  a  lair,  and  she  went  out  from  it  into  this 
vast,  dun  world,  with  its  smoke-gray  houses,  its  glaring 
streets  of  shops,  its  dark  streets  of  homes,  its  orange-lit 
windows,  under  skies  of  dull  copper  or  muddy  gray  or 
black,  much  as  an  animal  goes  out  to  seek  food.  She 
would  come  back  and  write  letters,  carefully  planned 
and  written  letters,  or  read  some  book  she  had  fetched 
from  Mudie's  —  she  had  invested  a  half -guinea  with 
Mudie's — or  sit  over  her  fire  and  think. 

Slowly  and  reluctantly  she  came  to  realize  that  Vivie 
Warren  was  what  is  called  an  "ideal."  There  were  no 
such  girls  and  no  such  positions.  No  work  that  of- 

136 


IDEALS   AND   A   REALITY 

fered  was  at  all  of  the  quality  she  had  vaguely  postu- 
lated for  herself.  With  such  qualifications  as  she  pos- 
sessed, two  chief  channels  of  employment  lay  open,  and 
neither  attracted  her,  neither  seemed  really  to  offer  a 
conclusive  escape  from  that  subjection  to  mankind 
against  which,  in  the  person  of  her  father,  she  was 
rebelling.  One  main  avenue  was  for  her  to  become  a 
sort  of  salaried  accessory  wife  or  mother,  to  be  a  gov- 
erness or  an  assistant  schoolmistress,  or  a  very  high  type 
of  governess-nurse.  The  other  was  to  go  into  business 
— into  a  photographer's  reception-room,  for  example, 
or  a  costumer's  or  hat-shop.  The  first  set  of  occupa- 
tions seemed  to  her  to  be  altogether  too  domestic  and 
restricted ;  for  the  latter  she  was  dreadfully  handicapped 
by  her  want  of  experience.  And  also  she  didn't  like 
them.  She  didn't  like  the  shops,  she  didn't  like  the 
other  women's  faces;  she  thought  the  smirking  men  in 
frock-coats  who  dominated  these  establishments  the 
most  intolerable  persons  she  had  ever  had  to  face.  One 
called  her  very  distinctly  "My  dear!" 

Two  secretarial  posts  did  indeed  seem  to  offer  them- 
selves in  which,  at  least,  there  was  no  specific  ex- 
clusion of  womanhood;  one  was  under  a  Radical  Mem- 
ber of  Parliament,  and  the  other  under  a  Harley  Street 
doctor,  and  both  men  declined  her  proffered  services 
with  the  utmost  civility  and  admiration  and  terror. 
There  was  also  a  curious  interview  at  a  big  hotel  with 
a  middle-aged,  white-powdered  woman,  all  covered  with 
jewels  and  reeking  of  scent,  who  wanted  a  Companion. 
She  did  not  think  Ann  Veronica  would  do  as  her  com- 
panion. 

And  nearly  all  these  things  were  fearfully  ill-paid. 

137 


ANN    VERONICA 

They  carried  no  more  than  bare  subsistence  wages, 
and  they  demanded  all  her  time  and  energy.  She 
had  heard  of  women  journalists,  women  writers,  and 
so  forth;  but  she  was  not  even  admitted  to  the  pres- 
ence of  the  editors  she  demanded  to  see,  and  by  no 
means  sure  that  if  she  had  been  she  could  have  done 
any  work  they  might  have  given  her.  One  day  she 
desisted  from  her  search  and  went  unexpectedly  to  the 
Tredgold  College.  Her  place  was  not  filled ;  she  had  been 
simply  noted  as  absent,  and  she  did  a  comforting  day 
of  admirable  dissection  upon  the  tortoise.  She  was  so 
interested,  and  this  was  such  a  relief  from  the  trudging 
anxiety  of  her  search  for  work,  that  she  went  on  for  a 
whole  week  as  if  she  was  still  living  at  home.  Then  a 
third  secretarial  opening  occurred  and  renewed  her  hopes 
again :  a  position  as  amanuensis — with  which  some  of  the 
lighter  duties  of  a  nurse  were  combined — to  an  infirm 
gentleman  of  means  living  at  Twickenham,  and  engaged 
upon  a  great  literary  research  to  prove  that  the  "Faery 
Queen"  was  really  a  treatise  upon  molecular  chemistry 
written  in  a  peculiar  and  picturesquely  handled  cipher. 


§   2 

Now,  while  Ann  Veronica  was  taking  these  soundings 
in  the  industrial  sea,  and  measuring  herself  against  the 
world  as  it  is,  she  was  also  making  extensive  explorations 
among  the  ideas  and  attitudes  of  a  number  of  human 
beings  who  seemed  to  be  largely  concerned  with  the 
world  as  it  ought  to  be.  She  was  drawn  first  by  Miss 
Miniver,  and  then  by  her  own  natural  interest,  into  a 


IDEALS   AND   A   REALITY 

curious  stratum  of  people  who  are  busied  with  dreams 
of  world  progress,  of  great  and  fundamental  changes,  of  a 
New  Age  that  is  to  replace  all  the  stresses  and  disorders 
of  contemporary  life. 

Miss  Miniver  learned  of  her  flight  and  got  her  address 
from  the  Widgetts.  She  arrived  about  nine  o'clock 
the  next  evening  in  a  state  of  tremulous  enthusiasm. 
She  followed  the  landlady  half  way  up- stairs,  and 
called  up  to  Ann  Veronica,  "May  I  come  up?  It's 
me!  You  know — Nettie  Miniver!"  She  appeared  before 
Ann  Veronica  could  clearly  recall  who  Nettie  Miniver 
might  be. 

There  was  a  wild  light  in  her  eye,  and  her  straight  hair 
was  out  demonstrating  and  sufTragetting  upon  some 
independent  notions  of  its  own.  Her  ringers  were  burst- 
ing through  her  gloves,  as  if  to  get  at  once  into  touch 
with  Ann  Veronica.  "You're  Glorious!"  said  Miss 
Miniver  in  tones  of  rapture,  holding  a  hand  in  each  of 
hers  and  peering  up  into  Ann  Veronica's  face.  "  Glorious ! 
You're  so  calm,  dear,  and  so  resolute,  so  serene! 

"  It's  girls  like  you  who  will  show  them  what  We  are," 
said  Miss  Miniver;  "girls  whose  spirits  have  not  been 
broken!" 

Ann  Veronica  sunned  herself  a  little  in  this  warmth. 

"I  was  watching  you  at  Morningside  Park,  dear," 
said  Miss  Miniver.  "  I  am  getting  to  watch  all  women. 
I  thought  then  perhaps  you  didn't  care,  that  you  were 
like  so  many  of  them.  Now  it's  just  as  though  you  had 
grown  up  suddenly." 

She  stopped,  and  then  suggested:  " I  wonder — I  should 
love — if  it  was  anything  7  said." 

She  did  not  wait  for  Ann  Veronica's  reply.  She  seem- 
10  139 


ANN    VERONICA 

ed  to  assume  that  it  must  certainly  be  something  she 
had  said.  "They  all  catch  on,"  she  said.  "It  spreads 
like  wildfire.  This  is  such  a  grand  time !  Such  a  glorious 
time!  There  never  was  such  a  time  as  this!  Every- 
thing seems  so  close  to  fruition,  so  coming  on  and  lead- 
ing on!  The  Insurrection  of  Women!  They  spring  up 
everywhere.  Tell  me  all  that  happened,  one  sister- 
woman  to  another." 

She  chilled  Ann  Veronica  a  little  by  that  last  phrase, 
and  yet  the  magnetism  of  her  fellowship  and  enthusiasm 
was  very  strong;  and  it  was  pleasant  to  be  made  out  a 
heroine  after  so  much  expostulation  and  so  many  secret 
doubts. 

But  she  did  not  listen  long;  she  wanted  to  talk.  She 
sat,  crouched  together,  by  the  corner  of  the  hearthrug 
under  the  bookcase  that  supported  the  pig's  skull,  and 
looked  into  the  fire  and  up  at  Ann  Veronica's  face,  and 
let  herself  go.  "Let  us  put  the  lamp  out,"  she  said; 
"the  flames  are  ever  so  much  better  for  talking,"  and 
Ann  Veronica  agreed.  "  You  are  coming  right  out  into 
life— facing  it  all." 

Ann  Veronica  sat  with  her  chin  on  her  hand,  red- 
lit  and  saying  little,  and  Miss  Miniver  discoursed.  As 
she  talked,  the  drift  and  significance  of  what  she  was 
saying  shaped  itself  slowly  to  Ann  Veronica's  appre- 
hension. It  presented  itself  in  the  likeness  of  a  great, 
gray,  dull  world— a  brutal,  superstitious,  confused,  and 
wrong-headed  world,  that  hurt  people  and  limited  people 
unaccountably.  /  In  remote  times  and  countries  its  evil 
tendencies  had  expressed  themselves  in  the  form  of 
tyrannies,  massacres,  wars,  and  what  not;  but  just  at 
present  in  England  they  shaped  as  commercialism  and 

140 


IDEALS   AND   A    REALITY 

competition,  silk  hats,  suburban  morals,  the  sweating 
system,  and  the  subjection  of  women.  So  far  the  thing 
was  acceptable  enough.  But  over  against  the  world 
Miss  Miniver  assembled  a  small  but  energetic  minority, 
the  Children  of  Light — people  she  described  as  "being  in 
the  van,"  or  "altogether  in  the  van,"  about  whom  Ann 
Veronica's  mind  was  disposed  to  be  more  sceptical. 

Everything,  Miss  Miniver  said,  was  "working  up," 
everything  was  "coming  on" — the  Higher  Thought,  the 
Simple  Life,  Socialism,  Humanitarianism,  it  was  all  the 
same  really.  She  loved  to  be  there,  taking  part  in  it  all, 
breathing  it,  being  it.  Hitherto  in  the  world's  history 
there  had  been  precursors  of  this  Progress  at  great  in- 
tervals, voices  that  had  spoken  and  ceased,  but  now  it 
was  all  coming  on  together  in  a  rush.  She  mentioned, 
with  familiar  respect,  Christ  and  Buddha  and  Shelley 
and  Nietzsche  and  Plato.  Pioneers  all  of  them.  Such 
names  shone  brightly  in  the  darkness,  with  black  spaces 
of  unilluminated  emptiness  about  them,  as  stars  shine 
in  the  night;  but  now — now  it  was  different;  now  it  was 
dawn — the  real  dawn. 

"The  women  are  taking  it  up,"  said  Miss  Miniver; 
"the  women  and  the  common  people,  all  pressing  for- 
ward, all  roused." 

Ann  Veronica  listened  with  her  eyes  on  the  fire. 

"Everybody  is  taking  it  up,"  said  Miss  Miniver. 
"  You  had  to  come  in.  You  couldn't  help  it.  Some- 
thing drew  you.  Something  draws  everybody.  From 
suburbs,  from  country  towns — everywhere.  I  see  all 
the  Movements.  As  far  as  I  can,  I  belong  to  them  all. 
I  keep  my  finger  on  the  pulse  of  things." 

Ann  Veronica  said  nothing. 

141 


ANN    VERONICA 

"The  dawn!"  said  Miss  Miniver,  with  her  glasses  re- 
flecting the  fire  like  pools  of  blood-red  flame. 

"I  came  to  London,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "rather  be- 
cause of  my  own  difficulty.  I  don't  know  that  I  under- 
stand altogether." 

"Of  course  you  don't,"  said  Miss  Miniver,  gesticulat- 
ing triumphantly  with  her  thin  hand  and  thinner  wrist, 
and  patting  Ann  Veronica's  knee.  "  Of  course  you  don't. 
That's  the  wonder  of  it.  But  you  will,  you  will.  You 
must  let  me  take  you  to  things — to  meetings  and  things, 
to  conferences  and  talks.  Then  you  will  begin  to  see. 
You  will  begin  to  see  it  all  opening  out.  I  am  up  to  the 
ears  in  it  all — every  moment  I  can  spare.  I  throw  up 
work — everything!  I  just  teach  in  one  school,  one  good 
school,  three  days  a  week.  All  the  rest — Movements! 
I  can  live  now  on  fourpence  a  day.  Think  how  free  that 
leaves  me  to  follow  things  up !  I  must  take  you  every- 
where. I  must  take  you  to  the  Suffrage  people,  and  the 
Tolstoyans,  and  the  Fabians." 

"I  have  heard  of  the  Fabians,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"It's  the  Society!"  said  Miss  Miniver.  "It's  the 
centre  of  the  intellectuals.  Some  of  the  meetings  are 
wonderful!  Such  earnest,  beautiful  women!  Such 
deep-browed  men!  .  .  .  And  to  think  that  there  they  are 
making  history!  There  they  are  putting  together  the 
plans  of  a  new  world.  Almos  light-heartedly.  There  is 
Shaw,  and  Webb,  and  Wilkins  the  author,  and  Toomer, 
and  Doctor  Tumpany — the  most  wonderful  people! 
There  you  see  them  discussing,  deciding,  planning! 
Just  think — they  are  making  a  new  world!" 

"But  are  these  people  going  to  alter  everything?" 
said  Ann  Veronica. 

142 


IDEALS   AND   A    REALITY 

"What  else  can  happen?"  asked  Miss  Miniver,  with 
a  little  weak  gesture  at  the  glow.  "What  else  can  possi- 
bly happen — as  things  are  going  now?" 


§3 

Miss  Miniver  let  Ann  Veronica  into  her  peculiar 
levels  of  the  world  with  so  enthusiastic  a  generosity 
that  it  seemed  ingratitude  to  remain  critical.  Indeed, 
almost  insensibly  Ann  Veronica  became  habituated  to 
the  peculiar  appearance  and  the  peculiar  manners  of 
the  people  "  in  the  van."  The  shock  of  their  intellectual 
attitude  was  over,  usage  robbed  it  of  the  first  quaint 
effect  of  deliberate  unreason.  They  were  in  many 
respects  so  right;  she  clung  to  that,  and  shirked  more 
and  more  the  paradoxical  conviction  that  they  were  also 
somehow,  and  even  in  direct  relation  to  that  Tightness, 
absurd. 

Very  central  in  Miss  Miniver's  universe  were  the 
Goopes.  The  Goopes  were  the  oddest  little  couple  con- 
ceivable, following  a  fruitarian  career  upon  an  upper 
floor  in  Theobald's  Road.  They  were  childless  and 
servantless,  and  they  had -reduced  simple  living  t6  the 
finest  of  fine  arts.  Mr.  Goopes,  Ann  Veronica  gathered, 
was  a  mathematical  tutor  and  visited  schools,  and  his 
wife  wrote  a  weekly  column  in  New  Ideas  upon  vegetarian 
cookery,  vivisection,  degeneration,  the  lacteal  secretion, 
appendicitis,  and  the  Higher  Thought  generally,  and 
assisted  in  the  management  of  a  fruit  shop  in  the  Totten- 
ham Court  Road.  Their  very  furniture  had  mysteriously 
a  high-browed  quality,  and  Mr.  Goopes  when  at  home 


ANN    VERONICA 

dressed  simply  in  a  pajama-shaped  suit  of  canvas 
sacking  tied  with  brown  ribbons,  while  his  wife  wore  a 
purple  djibbah  with  a  richly  embroidered  yoke.  He 
was  a  small,  dark,  reserved  man,  with  a  large  inflexible- 
looking  convex  forehead,  and  his  wife  was  very  pink 
and  high-spirited,  with  one  of  those  chins  that  pass 
insensibly  into  a  full,  strong  neck.  Once  a  week,  every 
Saturday,  they  had  a  little  gathering  from  nine  till  the 
small  hours,  just  talk  and  perhaps  reading  aloud  and 
fruitarian  refreshments — chestnut  sandwiches  buttered 
with  nut  tose,  and  so  forth — and  lemonade  and  unfer- 
mented  wine ;  and  to  one  of  these  symposia  Miss  Miniver, 
after  a  good  deal  of  preliminary  solicitude,  conducted 
Ann  Veronica. 

She  was  introduced,  perhaps  a  little  too  obviously 
for  her  taste,  as  a  girl  who  was  standing  out  against 
her  people,  to  a  gathering  that  consisted  of  a  very  old 
lady  with  an  extremely  wrinkled  skin  and  a  deep  voice, 
who  was  wearing  what  appeared  to  Ann  Veronica's 
inexperienced  eye  to  be  an  antimacassar  upon  her  head, 
a  shy,  blond  young  man  with  a  narrow  forehead  and 
glasses,  two  undistinguished  women  in  plain  skirts  and 
blouses,  and  a  middle-aged  couple,  very  fat  and  alike 
in  black,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alderman  Dunstable,  of  the 
Borough  Council  of  Marylebone.  These  were  seated  in 
an  imperfect  semicircle  about  a  very  copper-adorned 
fireplace,  surmounted  by  a  carved  wood  inscription: 

"DO  IT  NOW." 

And  to  them  were  presently  added  a  roguish-looking 
young  man,  with  reddish  hair,  an  orange  tie,  and  a  fluffy 

144 


IDEALS   AND  A   REALITY 

tweed  suit,  and  others  who,  in  Ann  Veronica's  memory, 
in  spite  of  her  efforts  to  recall  details,  remained  ob- 
stinately just  "others." 

The  talk  was  animated,  and  remained  always  brilliant 
in  form  even  when  it  ceased  to  be  brilliant  in  substance. 
There  were  moments  when  Ann  Veronica  rather  more 
than  suspected  the  chief  speakers  to  be,  as  school-boys 
say,  showing  off  at  her. 

They  talked  of  a  new  substitute  for  dripping  in 
vegetarian  cookery  that  Mrs.  Goopes  was  convinced 
exercised  an  exceptionally  purifying  influence  on  the 
mind.  And  then  they  talked  of  Anarchism  and  Social- 
ism, and  whether  the  former  was  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
latter  or  only  a  higher  form.  The  reddish -haired  young 
man  contributed  allusions  to  the  Hegelian  philosophy 
that  momentarily  confused  the  discussion.  Then  Alder- 
man Dunstable,  who  had  hitherto  been  silent,  broke  out 
into  speech  and  went  off  at  a  tangent,  and  gave  his 
personal  impressions  of  quite  a  number  of  his  fellow- 
councillors.  He  continued  to  do  this  for  the  rest  of  the 
evening  intermittently,  in  and  out,  among  other  topics. 
He  addressed  himself  chiefly  to  Goopes,  and  spoke  as 
if  in  reply  to  long-sustained  inquiries  on  the  part  of 
Goopes  into  the  personnel  of  the  Marylebone  Borough 
Council.  "If  you  were  to  ask  me,"  he  would  say,  "I 
should  say  Blinders  is  straight.  An  ordinary  type,  of 
course — " 

Mrs.  Dunstable's  contributions  to  the  conversation 
were  entirely  in  the  form  of  nods;  whenever  Alderman 
Dunstable  praised  or  blamed  she  nodded  twice  or  thrice, 
according  to  the  requirements  of  his  emphasis.  And 
she  seemed  always  to  keep  one  eye  on  Ann  Veronica's 

MS 


ANN    VERONICA 

dress.  Mrs.  Goopes  disconcerted  the  Alderman  a  little 
by  abruptly  challenging  the  roguish-looking  young  man 
in  the  orange  tie  (who,  it  seemed,  was  the  assistant 
editor  of  New  Ideas)  upon  a  critique  of  Nietzsche  and 
Tolstoy  that  had  appeared  in  his  paper,  in  which  doubts 
had  been  cast  upon  the  perfect  sincerity  of  the  latter. 
Everybody  seemed  greatly  concerned  about  the  sincerity 
of  Tolstoy. 

Miss  Miniver  said  that  if  once  she  lost  her  faith  in 
Tolstoy's  sincerity,  nothing  she  felt  would  really  matter 
much  any  more,  and  she  appealed  to  Ann  Veronica 
whether  she  did  not  feel  the  same;  and  Mr.  Goopes 
said  that  (we  must  distinguish  between  sincerity  and 
irony,  which  was  often  indeed  no  more  than  sincerity 
at  the  sublimated  level.  ) 

Alderman  Dunstable  said  that  sincerity  was  often  a 
matter  of  opportunity,  and  illustrated  the  point  to  the 
fair  young  man  with  an  anecdote  about  Blinders  on  the 
Dust  Destructor  Committee,  during  which  the  young 
man  in  the  orange  tie  succeeded  in  giving  the  whole 
discussion  a  daring  and  erotic  flavor  by  questioning 
whether  any  one  could  be  perfectly  sincere  in  love. 

Miss  Miniver  thought  that  there  was  no  true  sincerity 
except  in  love,  and  appealed  to  Ann  Veronica,  but  the 
young  man  in  the  orange  tie  went  on  to  declare  that  it 
was  quite  possible  to  be  sincerely  in  love  with  two  people 
at  the  same  time,  although  perhaps  on  different  planes 
with  each  individual,  and  deceiving  them  both.  But 
that  brought  Mrs.  Goopes  down  on  him  with  the  lesson 
Titian  teaches  so  beautifully  in  his  "Sacred  and  Profane 
Love,"  and  became  quite  eloquent  upon  the  impossibility 
of  any  deception  in  the  former. 

146 


IDEALS    AND   A   REALITY 

Then  they  discoursed  on  love  for  a  time,  and  Alder- 
man Dunstable,  turning  back  to  the  shy,  blond  young 
man  and  speaking  in  undertones  of  the  utmost  clearness, 
gave  a  brief  and  confidential  account  of  an  unfounded 
rumor  of  the  bifurcation  of  the  affections  of  Blinders 
that  had  led  to  a  situation  of  some  unpleasantness  upon 
the  Borough  Council. 

The  very  old  lady  in  the  antimacassar  touched  Ann 
Veronica's  arm  suddenly,  and  said,  in  a  deep,  arch  voice: 

"Talking  of  love  again;  spring  again,  love  again. 
Oh!  you  young  people!" 

The  young  man  with  the  orange  tie,  in  spite  of  Sis- 
yphus-like efforts  on  the  part  of  Goopes  to  get  the  topic 
on  to  a  higher  plane,  displayed  great  persistence  in  spec- 
ulating upon  the  possible  distribution  of  the  affections 
of  highly  developed  modern  types. 

The  old  lady  in  the  antimacassar  said,  abruptly, 
"Ah!  you  young  people,  you  young  people,  if  you  only 
knew!"  and  then  laughed  and  then  mused  in  a  marked 
manner;  and  the  young  man  with  the  narrow  forehead 
and  glasses  cleared  his  throat  and  asked  the  young  man 
in  the  orange  tie  whether  he  believed  that  Platonic  love 
was  possible.  Mrs.  Goopes  said  she  believed  in  nothing 
else,  and  with  that  she  glanced  at  Ann  Veronica,  rose  a 
little  abruptly,  and  directed  Goopes  and  the  shy  young 
man  in  the  handing  of  refreshments. 

But  the  young  man  with  the  orange  tie  remained  in 
his  place,  disputing  whether  the  body  had  not  some- 
thing or  other  which  he  called  its  legitimate  claims. 
And  from  that  they  came  back  by  way  of  the  Kreutzer 
Sonata  and  Resurrection  to  Tolstoy  again. 

So  the  talk  went  on.     Goopes,  who  had  at  first  been 


ANN    VERONICA 

a  little  reserved,  resorted  presently  to  the  Socratic  meth- 
od to  restrain  the  young  man  with  the  orange  tie,  and 
bent  his  forehead  over  him,  and  brought  out  at  last  very 
clearly  from  him  that  the  body  was  only  illusion  and 
everything  nothing  but  just  spirit  and  molecules  of 
thought.  It  became  a  sort  of  duel  at  last  between 
them,  and  all  the  others  sat  and  listened — every  one, 
that  is,  except  the  Alderman,  who  had  got  the  blond 
young  man  into  a  corner  by  the  green-stained  dresser 
with  the  aluminium  things,  and  was  sitting  with  his 
back  to  every  one  else,  holding  one  hand  over  his  mouth 
for  greater  privacy,  and  telling  him,  with  an  accent  of 
confidential  admission,  in  whispeis  of  the  chronic  strug- 
gle between  the  natural  modesty  and  general  inoffen- 
siveness  of  the  Borough  Council  and  the  social  evil  in 
Marylebone. 

So  the  talk  went  on,  and  presently  they  were  criticis- 
ing novelists,  and  certain  daring  essays  of  Wilkins  got 
their  due  share  of  attention,  and  then  they  were  discuss- 
ing the  future  of  the  theatre.  Ann  Veronica  inter- 
vened a  little  in  the  novelist  discussion  with  a  defence 
of  Esmomi  and  a  denial  that  the  Egoist  was  obscure,  and 
when  she  spoke  every  one  else  stopped  talking  and  lis- 
tened. Then  they  deliberated  whether  Bernard  Shaw 
ought  to  go  into  Parliament.  And  that  brought  them 
to  vegetarianism  and  teetotalism,  and  the  young  man 
in  the  orange  tie  and  Mrs.  Goopes  had  a  great  set-to 
about  the  sincerity  of  Chesterton  and  Belloc  that  was 
ended  by  Goopes  showing  signs  of  resuming  the  Socratic 
method. 

And  at  last  Ann  Veronica  and  Miss  Miniver  came  down 
the  dark  staircase  and  out  into  the  foggy  spaces  of  the 

148 


IDEALS   AND   A   REALITY 

London  squares,  and  crossed  Russell  Square,  Woburn 
Square,  Gordon  Square,  making  an  oblique  route  to 
Ann  Veronica's  lodging.  They  trudged  along  a  little 
hungry,  because  of  the  fruitarian  refreshments,  and 
mentally  very  active.  And  Miss  Miniver  fell  discussing 
whether  Goopes  or  Bernard  Shaw  or  Tolstoy  or  Doctor 
Tumpany  or  Wilkins  the  author  had  the  more  power- 
ful and  perfect  mind  in  existence  at  the  present  time. 
She  was  clear  there  were  no  other  minds  like  them  in 
all  the  world. 

§4 

Then  one  evening  Ann  Veronica  went  with  Miss 
Miniver  into  the  back  seats  of  the  gallery  at  Essex  Hall, 
and  heard  and  saw  the  giant  leaders  of  the  Fabian  So- 
ciety who  are  re-making  the  world:  Bernard  Shaw  and 
Toomer  and  Doctor  Tumpany  and  Wilkins  the  author, 
all  displayed  upon  a  platform.  The  place  was  crowded, 
and  the  people  about  her  were  almost  equally  made  up 
of  very  good-looking  and  enthusiastic  young  people  and 
a  great  variety  of  Goopes-like  types.  In  the  discussion 
there  was  the  oddest  mixture  of  things  that  were  per- 
sonal and  petty  with  an  idealist  devotion  that  was  fine 
beyond  dispute.  In  nearly  every  speech  she  heard 
was  the  same  implication  of  great  and  necessary  changes 
in  the  world — changes  to  be  won  by  effort  and  sacrifice 
indeed,  but  surely  to  be  won.  (And  afterward  she  saw 
a  very  much  larger  and  more  enthusiastic  gathering,  a 
meeting  of  the  advanced  section  of  the  woman  move- 
ment in  Caxton  Hall,  where  the  same  note  of  vast 
changes  in  progress  sounded;  and  she  went  to  a  soiree 

149 


ANN    VERONICA 

of  the  Dress  Reform  Association  and  visited  a  Food 
Reform  Exhibition,  where  imminent  change  was  made 
even  alarmingly  visible.  The  women's  meeting  was 
much  more  charged  with  emotional  force  than  the  So- 
cialists'. Ann  Veronica  was  carried  off  her  intellectual 
and  critical  feet  by  it  altogether,  and  applauded  and 
uttered  cries  rthat  subsequent  reflection  failed  to  en- 
dorse. !  "  I  knew  you  would  feel  it,"  said  Miss  Miniver, 
as  they  came  away  flushed  and  heated.  "I  knew  you 
would  begin  to  see  how  it  all  falls  into  place  to- 
gether." 

It  did  begin  to  fall  into  place  together.  She  became 
more  and  more  alive,  not  so  much  to  a  system  of  ideas 
as  to  a  {big _  diffused  impulse  toward  change)  to  a  great 
discontent  with  and  criticisni  of  life  asjt_i/ lived,  to  a 
clamorous  confusion  of  ideas  for  reconstructiojOzr-re- 
construction  of  the  methods  of  business,  of  economic 
development,  of  the  rules  of  property,  of  the  status  of 
children,  of  the  clothing  and  feeding  and  teaching  of 
f  very  one ;  she  developed  a  quite  exaggerated  conscious- 
ness of  a  multitude  of  people  going  about  the  swarming 
spaces  of  London  with  their  minds  full,  their  talk  and 
gestures  full,  their  very  clothing  charged  with  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  urgency  of  this  pervasive  project  of  altera- 
tion^ Some  indeed  carried  themselves,  dressed  them- 
selves even,  rather  as  foreign  visitors  from  the  land  of 
"Looking  Backward"  and  "News  from  Nowhere"  than 
as  the  indigenous  Londoners  they  were.  For  the  most 
part  these  were  detached  people:  men  practising  the 
plastic  arts,  young  writers,  young  men  in  employment, 
a  very  large  proportion  of  girls  and  women — self-sup- 
porting women  or  girls  of  the  student  class.  They  made 

150 


IDEALS   AND   A    REALITY 

a  stratum  into  which  Ann  Veronica  was  now  plunged  up 
to  her  neck;  it  had  become  her  stratum. 

None  of  the  things  they  said  and  did  were  altogether 
new  to  Ann  Veronica,  but  now  she  got  them  massed 
and  alive,  instead  of  by  glimpses  or  in  books  —  alive 
and  articulate  and  insistent.  The  London  backgrounds^ 
in  Bloomsbury  and  Marylebone,  against  which  these 
people  went  to  and  fro,  took  on,  by  reason  of  their 
gray  fa£ades,  their  implacably  respectable  windows  and 
window-blinds,  their  reiterated  unmeaning  iron  railings, 
a  stronger  and  stronger  suggestion  of  the  flavor  of  her 
father  at  his  most  obdurate  phase,  and  (of  all  that  she 
felt  herself  fighting""agaTnstC\ 

She  was  already  a  little"  prepared  by  her  discursive 
reading  and  discussion  under  the  Widgett  influence  for 
ideas  and  "movements,"  though  temperamentally  per- 
haps she  was  rather  disposed  to  resist  and  criticise  than 
embrace  them.  But  the  people  among  whom  she  was 
now  thrown  through  the  social  exertions  of  Miss  Miniver 
and  the  Widgetts — for  Teddy  and  Hetty  came  up  from 
Morningside  Park  and  took  her  to  an  eighteen-penny 
dinner  in  Soho  and  introduced  her  to  some  art  students, 
who  were  also  Socialists,  and  so  opened  the  way  to  an 
evening  of  meandering  talk  in  a  studio — carried  with 
them  like  an  atmosphere  this  implication,  not  only  that 
the  world  was  in  some  stupid  and  even  obvious  way 
wrong,  with  which  indeed  she  was  quite  prepared  to 
agree,  but  that  it  needed  only  a  few  pioneers  to  behave 
as  such  and  be  thoroughly  and  indiscriminately  "ad- 
vanced," for  the  new  order  to  achieve  itself.  When 
ninety  per  cent,  out  of  the  ten  or  twelve  people  one 
meets  in  a  month  not  only  say  but  feel  and  assume  a 


ANN    VERONICA 

thing,  it  is  very  hard  not  to  fall  into  the  belief  that  the 
thing  is  so.  Imperceptibly  almost  Ann  Veronica  began 
to  acquire  the  new  attitude,  even  while  her  mind  still 
resisted  the  felted  ideas  that  went  with  it.  And  Miss 
Miniver  began  to  sway  her. 

The  very  facts  that  Miss  Miniver  never  stated  an  argu- 
ment clearly,  that  she  was  never  embarrassed  by  a  sense 
of  self-contradiction,  and  had  little  more  respect  for 
consistency  of  statement  than  a  washerwoman  has  for 
wisps  of  vapor,  which  made  Ann  Veronica  critical  and 
hostile  at  their  first  encounter  in  Morningside  Park, 
became  at  last  with  constant  association  the  secret  of 
Miss  Miniver's  growing  influence.  The  brain  tires  of 
resistance,  and  when  it  meets  again  and  again,  incoher- 

-^%^^*x*/^^^ 

ehtly  active,  the  same  phrases,  the  same  ideas  that  it 
has  already /slain,  exposed  and  dissected  and  buried^  it 
becomes  less  and  less  energetic  to  repeat  the  operation. 
There  must  be  something,  one  feels,  in  ideas  that  achieve 
persistently  a  successful  resurrection.  What  Miss  Mini- 
ver would  have  called  the  Higher  Truth  supervenes. 

Yet  through  these  talks,  these  meetings  and  confer- 
ences, these  movements  and  efforts,  Ann  Veronica,  for 
all  that  she  went  with  her  friend,  and  at  times  ap- 
plauded with  her  enthusiastically,  yet  went  nevertheless 
with  eyes  that  grew  more  and  more  puzzled,  and  fine 
eyebrows  more  and  more  disposed  to  knit.  She  was 
with  these  movements — akin  to  them,  she  felt  it  at 
times  intensely — and  yet  something  eluded  her.  Morn- 
ingside Park  had  been  passive  and  defective;  all  this 
rushed  about  and  was  active,  (but  it  was  still  defective^ 
It  still  failed  in  something.  It  did  seem  germane  to  the 
matter  that  so  many  of  the  people  "in  the  van"  were 

152 


IDEALS   AND    A    REALITY 

plain  people,  or  faded  people,  or  tired-looking  people. 
It  did  affect  the  business  that  they  all  argued  badly  and 
were  egotistical  in  their  manners  and  inconsistent  in 
their  phrases.  There  were  moments  when  she  doubted 
whether  the  whole  mass  of  movements  and  societies  and 
gatherings  and  talks  was  not  simply  (one  coherent  spec- 
tacle of  failure  protecting  itself  from  abjection  by  the 
glamour  of  its  own  assertions?]  It  happened  that  at  the 
extremest  point  of  Ann  Veronica's  social  circle  from  the 
Widgetts  was  the  family  of  the  Morningside  Park  horse- 
dealer,  a  company  of  extremely  dressy  and  hilarious 
young  women,  with  one  equestrian  brother  addicted  to 
fancy  waistcoats,  cigars,  and  facial  spots.  These  girls 
wore  hats  at  remarkable  angles  and  bows  to  startle  and 
kill;  they  liked  to  be  right  on  the  spot  every  time  and 
up  to  everything  that  was  it  from  the  very  beginning, 
and  they  rendered  their  conception  of  Socialists  and  all 
reformers  by  the  words  ''positively  frightening"  and 
''weird."  Well,  it  was  beyond  dispute  that  these  words 
did  convey  a  certain  quality  of  the  Movements  in  gen- 
eral amid  which  Miss  Miniver  disported  herself.  They 
were  weird.  And  yet  for  all  that — 

It  got  into  Ann  Veronica's  nights  at  last  and  kept  her 
awake,  ^he^perplexing  contrasjt^bejwjejenthe  advanced 
thought,  and  tEe  advjjiR^flt'^*n]a**V  Tho  ^«mflpai  p'n>p- 
ositions  of  Socialism,  for  example,  struck  her  as  admir- 
able, but  she  certainly  did  not  extend  her  admiration  to 
any  of  its  exponents.     She  was  still  more  stirred  by  the 
yidea  of  the  equal  citizenship  of  men  and  women,  by  the 
(realization  that  a  big  and  growing  organization  of  women 
were  giving  form  and  a  generalized  expression  to  just 
that  personal  pride,  that  aspiration  for  personal  frce- 

153 


ANN    VERONICA 

dom  and  respect  which  had  brought  her  to  London;)  but 
when  she  heard  Miss  Miniver  discoursing  on  the  next 
step  in  the  suffrage  campaign,  or  read  of  women  badger- 
ing Cabinet  Ministers,  padlocked  to  railings,  or  getting 
up  in  a  public  meeting  to  pipe  out  a  demand  for  votes 
and  be  carried  out  kicking  and  screaming,  her  soul  je- 
volted.  She  could  notpaft  with  gignitj)-.  Something 
as  yet  unformulated  within  her  kept  her  estranged  from 
all  these  practical  aspects  of  her  beliefs. 

"Not  for  these  things,  O  Ann  Veronica,  have  you 
revolted,"  it  said;  "and  this  is  not  your  appropriate 
purpose." 

It  was  as  if  she  faced  a  darkness  in  which  was  some- 
thing very  beautiful  and  wonderful  as  yet  unimagined. 
The  little  pucker  in  her  brows  became  more  perceptible. 


8  5 

In  the  beginning  of  December  Ann  Veronica  began 
to  speculate  privately  upon  the  procedure  of  pawning. 
She  had  decided  that  she  would  begin  with  her  pearl 
necklace.  She  spent  a  very  disagreeable  afternoon  and 
evening — it  was  raining  fast  outside,  and  she  had  very 
unwisely  left  her  soundest  pair  of  boots  in  the  boothole 
of  her  father's  house  in  Morningside  Park — thinking  over 
the  economic  situation  and  planning  a  course  of  action. 
Her  aunt  had  secretly  sent  on  to  Ann  Veronica  some  new 
warm  underclothing,  a  dozen  pairs  of  stockings,  and  her 
last  winter's  jacket,  but  the  dear  lady  had  overlooked 
those  boots. 

These    things   illuminated    her    situation    extremely. 


IDEALS   AND    A    REALITY 

Finally  she  decided  upon  a  step  that -had  always  seemed 
reasonable  to  her,  but  that  hitherto  she  had,  from  mo- 
tives too  faint  for  her  to  formulate,  refrained  from  tak- 
ing. -She  resolved  to  go  into  the  City  to  Ramage  and 
ask  for  his  advice.  And  next  morning  she  attired  herself 
with  especial  care  and  neatness,  found  his  a'ddress  in 
the  Directory  at  a  post-office,  and  went  to  him. 

She  had  to  wait  some  minutes  in  an  outer  office, 
wherein  three  young  men  of  spirited  costume  and  ap- 
pearance regarded  her  with  ill-concealed  curiosity  and 
admiration.  Then  Ramage  appeared  with  effusion,  and 
ushered  her  into  his  inner  apartment.  The  three  young 
men  exchanged  expressive  glances. 

The  inner  apartment  was  rather  gracefully  furnished 
with  a  thick,  fine  Turkish  carpet,  a  good  brass  fender,  a 
fine  old  bureau,  and  on  the  walls  were  engravings  of  two 
young  girls'  heads  by  Greuze,  and  of  some  modern  picture 
of  boys  bathing  in  a  sunlit  pooO 

"But  this  is  a  surprise!"  said  Ramage.  "This  is 
wonderful!  I've  been  feeling  that  you  had  vanished 
from  my  world.  Have  you  been  away  from  Morning- 
side  Park?" 

"I'm  not  interrupting  you?" 

"You  are.  Splendidly.  Business  exists  for  such 
interruptions.  There  you  are,  the  best  client's  chair." 

Ann  Veronica  sat  down,  and  Ramage's  eager  eyes 
feasted  on  her. 

"  I've  been  looking  out  for  you,"  he  said.  "  I  confess 
it." 

She  had  not,  she  reflected,  remembered  how  prom- 
inent his  eyes  were. 

"I  want  some  advice,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Yes?" 

"You  remember  once,  how  we  talked — at  a  gate  on 
the  Downs?  We  talked  about  how  a  girl  might  get 
an  independent  living." 

"Yes,  yes." 

"Well,  you  see,  something  has  happened  at  home." 

She  paused. 

"Nothing  has  happened  to  Mr.  Stanley?" 

"  I've  fallen  out  with  my  father.  It  was  about — a 
question  of  what  I  might  do  or  might  not  do.  He — 
In  fact,  he — he  locked  me  in  my  room.  Practically." 

Her  breath  left  her  for  a  moment. 

"I  say!"  said  Mr.  Ramage. 

"I  wanted  to  go  to  an  art-student  ball  of  which  he 
disapproved." 

"And  why  shouldn't  you?" 

"  I  felt  that  sort  of  thing  couldn't  go  on.  So  I  packed 
up  and  came  to  London  next  day." 

"To  a  friend?" 

"To  lodgings — alone." 

"I  say,  you  know,  you  have  some  pluck.  You  did 
it  on  your  own?" 

Ann  Veronica  smiled.     "Quite  on  my  own,"  she  said. 

"It's  magnificent!"  He  leaned  back  and  regarded 
her  with  his  head  a  little  on  one  side.  "By  Jove!" 
he  said,  "  there  is  something  direct  about  you.  (\  wonder 
if  I  should  have  locked  you  up  if  I'd  been  your  father) 
Luckily  I'm  not.  And  you  started  out  forthwith  to 
fight  the  world  and  be  a  citizen  on  your  own  basis?" 
He  came  forward  again  and  folded  his  hands  under 
him  on  his  desk.  "How  has  the  world  taken  it?"  he 
asked.  "  If  I  was  the  world  I  think  I  should  have  put 

156 


IDEALS   AND   A   REALITY 

down  a  crimson  carpet,  and  asked  you  to  say  what  you 
wanted,  and  generally  walk  over  me.  But  the  world 
didn't  do  that." 

"Not  exactly." 

"It  presented  a  large  impenetrable  back,  and  went 
on  thinking  about  something  else." 

"  It  offered  from  fifteen  to  two-and- twenty  shillings 
a  week — for  drudgery." 

"The  world  has  no  sense  of  what  is  due  to  youth 
and  courage.  It  never  has  had." 

"Yes,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "But  the  thing  is, 
I  want  a  job." 

"  Exactly !  And  so  you  came  along  to  me.  And 
you  see,  I  don't  turn  my  back,  and  I  am  looking  at  you 
and  thinking  about  you  from  top  to  toe." 

"And  what  do  you  think  I  ought  to  do?" 

"Exactly!"  He  lifted  a  paper-weight  and  dabbed 
it  gently  down  again.  "What  ought  you  to  do?" 

"I've  hunted  up  all  sorts  of  things." 

"The  point  to  note  is  that  fundamentally  you  don't 
want  particularly  to  do  it." 

"I  don't  understand." 

"You  want  to  be  free  and  so  forth,  yes.  But  you 
don't  particularly  want  to  do  the  job  that  sets  you  free — 
for  its  own  sake.  I  mean  that  it  doesn't  interest  you 
in  itself." 

"I  suppose  not." 

"  That's  one  of  our  differences.  (  We  men  are  like 
children.  We  can  get  absorbed  in  play,  in  games, 
in_ the  business  we  do.  That's  really  why  we  do'tRem 
sometimes  ^rather"  well  and  get  on^  But  women — • 
women  as  a  rule  don't  throw  themselves  to  to  thing* 

157 


ANN    VERONICA 

like  that.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  isn't  their  affair.  And, 
as  a  natural  consequence,  they  don't  do  so  well,  and  they 
don't  get  on — and  so  the  world  doesn't  pay  them. 
They  don't  catch  on  to  discursive  interests,  you  see, 
because  they  are  more  serious,  they  are  concentrated  on 
the  central  reality  of  life,  and  a  little  impatient  of  its — 
its  outer  aspects.  At  least  that,  I  think,  is  what  makes 
a  clever  woman's  independent  career  so  much  more 
difficult  than  a  clever  man's." 

"She  doesn't  develop  a  specialty."  Ann  Veronica 
was  doing  her  best  to  follow  him. 

"She  has  one,  that's  why.  Her  specialty  is  the 
central  thing  in  life,  it  is  life  itself,  the  warmth  of  life, 
sex — and  love." 

He  pronounced  this  with  an  air  of  profound  con- 
viction and  with  his  eyes  on  Ann  Veronica's  face.  He 
had  an  air  of  having  told  her  a  deep,  personal  se- 
cret. She  winced  as  he  thrust  the  fact  at  her,  was 
about  to  answer,  and  checked  herself.  She  colored 
faintly. 

"That  doesn't  touch  the  question  I  asked  you," 
she  said.  "  It  may  be  true,  but  it  isn't  quite  what  I 
have  in  mind." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Ramage,  as  one  who  rouses 
himself  from  deep  preoccupations  And  he  began 
to  question  her  in  a  business-like  way  upon  the  steps 
she  had  taken  and  the  inquiries  she  had  made.  He 
displayed  none  of  the  airy  optimism  of  their  previous 
talk  over  the  downland  gate.  He  was  helpful,  but 
gravely  dubious.  "You  see,"  he  said,  "from  my  point 
of  view  you're  grown  up — you're  as  old  as  all  the  god- 
desses and  the  contemporary  of  any  man  alive.  But 

158 


IDEALS   AND    A    REALITY 

from  the — the  economic  point  of  view  you're  a  very 
young  and  altogether  inexperienced  person." 

He  returned  to  and  developed  that  idea.  "You're 
still,"  he  said,  "in  the  educational  years.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  most  things  in  the  world  of  employment 
which  a  woman  can  do  reasonably  well  and  earn  a  living 
by,  you're  unripe  and  half-educated.  If  you  had  taken 
your  degree,  for  example." 

He  spoke  of  secretarial  work,  but  even  there  she 
would  need  to  be  able  to  do  typing  and  shorthand. 
He  made  it  more  and  more  evident  to  her  that  her 
proper  course  was  not  to  earn  a  salary  but  to  accu- 
mulate equipment.  "You  see,"  he  said,  "you  are 
like  an  inaccessible  gold-mine  in  all  this  sort  of  matter. 
You're  splendid  stuff,  you  know,  but  you've  got  nothing 
ready  to  sell.  That's  the  flat  business  situation." 

He  thought.  Then  he  slapped  his  hand  on  his  desk 
and  looked  up  with  the  air  of  a  man  struck  by  a  brilliant 
idea.  "Look  here,"  he  said,  protruding  his  eyes; 
"why  get  anything  to  do  at  all  just  yet?  Why,  if 
you  must  be  free,  why  not  do  the  sensible  thing?  Make 
yourself  wo^th^a^decejit^lrfiedom.  Go  on  with  your 
s£u3ies"at  the  Imperial  College,  for  example,  get  a  degree, 
and  make  yourself  good  value.  Or  become  a  thorough- 
going typist  and  stenographer  and  secretarial  expert." 

"But  I  can't  do  that." 

"Why  not?" 

"You  see,  if  I  do  go  home  my  father  objects  to  the 
College,  and  as  for  typing — " 

"  Don't  go  home." 

"Yes,  but  you  forget;  how  am  I  to  live?" 

"Easily.     Easily.  .  .  .  Borrow.  .  .  . 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I  couldn't  do  that,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  sharply. 

"I  see  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't." 

"It's  impossible." 

"As  one  friend  to  another.  Men  are  always  doing  it, 
and  if  you  set  up  to  be  a  man — " 

"  No,  it's  absolutely  out  of  the  question,  Mr.  Ramage." 
And  Ann  Veronica's  face  was  hot. 

Ramage  pursed  his  rather  loose  lips  and  shrugged  his 
shoulders,  with  his  eyes  fixed  steadily  upon  her.  "Well, 
anyhow —  I  don't  see  the  force  of  your  objection,  you 
know.  That's  my  advice  to  you.  Here  I  am.  Con- 
sider you've  got  resources  deposited  with  me.  Perhaps 
at  the  first  blush — it  strikes  you  as  odd.  People  are 
brought  up  toHGe  so  shy  about  money.  As  though  it 
was  indelicate.  It's  just  a  sort  of  shyness.  But  here 
I  am  to  draw  upon.  Here  I  am  as  an  alternative  either 
to  nasty  work — or  going  home." 

"It's  very  kind  of  you — "  began  Ann  Veronica. 

"  Not  a  bit.  Just  a  friendly  polite  suggestion.  I  don't 
suggest  any  philanthropy.  I  shall  charge  you  five  per 
cent.,  you  know,  fair  and  square." 

Ann  Veronica  opened  her  lips  quickly  and  did  not 
speak.  (But  the  five  per  cent,  certainly  did  seem  to  im- 
prove the  aspect  of  Ramage's  suggestion.) 

"Well,  anyhow,  consider  it  open."  He  dabbed  with 
his  paper-weight  again,  and  spoke  in  an  entirely  in- 
different tone.  "And  now  tell  me,  please,  how  you 
eloped  from  Morningside  Park.  How  did  you  get  your 
luggage  out  of  the  house?  Wasn't  it — wasn't  it  rather 
in  some  respects — rather  a  lark  ?  It's  one  of  my  regrets 
for  my  lost  youth.  I  never  ran  away  from  anywhere 
with  anybody  any  when.  And  now —  I  suppose  I 

1 60 


IDEALS   AND   A   REALITY 

should  be  considered  too  old.  I  don't  feel  it.  ...  Didn't 
you  feel  rather  eventful — in  the  train — coming  up  to 
Waterloo?" 

§  6 

Before  Christmas  Ann  Veronica  had  gone  to  Ramage 
again  and  accepted  this  offer  she  had  at  first  declined. 

Many  little  things  had  contributed  to  that  decision. 
The  chief  influence  was  her  awakening  sense  of  the  need 
of  money.  She  had  been  forced  to  buy  herself  that  pair 
of  boots  and  a  walking -skirt,  and  the  pearl  necklace  at 
the  pawnbrokers'  had  yielded  very  disappointingly.  And, 
also,  she  wanted  to  borrow  that  money.  It  did  seem 
in  so  many  ways  exactly  what  Ramage  said  it  was — the 
sensible  thing  to  do.  There  it  was — to  be  borrowed. 
It  would  put  the  whole  adventure  on  a  broader  and  bet- 
ter footing;  it  seemed,  in3eeid7"almost  the  only  possible 
way  in  which  she  might  emerge  from  her  rebellion  with 
anything  like  success.  If  only  for  the  sake  of  her  argu- 
ment with  her  home,  she  wanted  success.  And  why, 
after  all,  should  she  not  borrow  money  from  Ramage? 

It  was  so  true  what  he  said;  middle-class  people 
were  ridiculously  squeamish  about  money.  Why  should 
they  be? 

She  and  Ramage  were  friends,  very  good  friends.  If 
she  was  in  a  position  to  help  him  she  would  help  him; 
only  it  happened  to  be  the  other  way  round.  He  was  in 
a  position  to  help  her.  What  was  the  objection? 

She  found  it  impossible  to  look  her  own  diffidence  in 
the  face.  So  she  went  to  Ramage  and  came  to  the  point 
almost  at  once. 

161 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Can  you  spare  me  forty  pounds?"  she  said. 

Mr.  Ramage  controlled  his  expression  and  thought 
very  quickly.  ' 

"Agreed,"  he  said,  "certainly,"  and  drew  a  check- 
book toward  him. 

"It's  best,"  he  said,  "to  make  it  a  good  round  sum. 

"I  won't  give  you  a  check  though — •  Yes,  I  will. 
I'll  give  you  an  uncrossed  check,  and  then  you  can  get  it 
at  the  bank  here,  quite  close  by.  .  .  .  You'd  better  not 
have  all  the  money  on  you ;  you  had  better  open  a  small 
account  in  the  post-office  and  draw  it  out  a  fiver  at  a 
time.  That  won't  involve  references,  as  a  bank  account 
would — and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  The  money  will  last 
longer,  and — it  won't  bother  you." 

He  stood  up  rather  close  to  her  and  looked  into  her 
eyes.  He  seemed  to  be  trying  to  understand  some- 
thing very  perplexing  and  elusive.  "  It's  jolly,"  he  said, 
"to  feel  you  have  come  to  me.  It's  a  sort  of  guarantee 
of  confidence.  Last  time — you  made  me  feel  snubbed." 

He  hesitated,  and  went  off  at  a  tangent.  "There's  no 
end  of  things  I'd  like  to  talk  over  with  you.  It's  just 
upon  my  lunch-time.  Come  and  have  lunch  with  me." 

Ann  Veronica  fenced  for  a  moment.  "I  don't  want 
to  take  up  your  time." 

"We  won't  go  to  any  of  these  City  places.  They're 
just  all  men,  and  no  one  is  safe  from  scandal.  But  I 
know  a  little  place  where  we'll  get  a  little  quiet  talk." 

Ann  Veronica  for  some  indefinable  reason  did  not 
want  to  lunch  with  him,  a  reason  indeed  so  indefinable 
that  she  dismissed  it,  and  Ramage  went  through  the 
outer  office  with  her,  alert  and  attentive,  to  the  vivid 
interest  of  the  three  clerks.  The  three  clerks  fought 

162 


IDEALS   AND   A   REALITY 

for  the  only  window,  and  saw  her  whisked  into  a  hansom. 
(Their  subsequent  conversation  is  outside  the  scope  of  our 
storyy 

"Ritter's!"  said  Ramage  to  the  driver,  "Dean  Street." 

It  was  rare  that  Ann  Veronica  used  hansoms,  and  to 
be  in  one  was  itself  eventful  and  exhilarating.  She 
liked  the  high,  easy  swing  of  the  thing  over  its  big  wheels, 
the  quick  clatter-patter  of  the  horse,  the  passage  of  the 
teeming  streets.  She  admitted  her  pleasure  to  Ramage. 

And  Ritter's,  too,  was  very  amusing  and  foreign  and 
discreet;  a  little  rambling  room  with  a  number  of  small 
tables,  with  red  electric  light  shades  and  flowers.  It  was 
an  overcast  day,  albeit  not  foggy,  and  the  electric  light 
shades  glowed  warmly,  and  an  Italian  waiter  with  in- 
sufficient English  took  Ramage' s  orders,  and  waited 
with  an  appearance  of  affection.  Ann  Veronica  thought 
the  whole  affair  rather  jolly.  Ritter  sold  better  food 
than  most  of  his  compatriots,  and  cooked  it  better,  and 
Ramage,  with  a  fine  perception  of  a  feminine  palate, 
ordered  Vero  Capri.  It  was,  Ann  Veronica  felt,  as  a  sip 
or  so  of  that  remarkable  blend  warmed  her  blood,  just 
the  sort  of  thing  that  her  aunt  would  not  approve,  to  be 
lunching  thus,  tete-a-tete  with  a  man ;  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  it  was  a  perfectly  innocent  as  well  as  agreeable 
proceeding. 

They  talked  across  their  meal  in  an  easy  and  friendly 
manner  about  Ann  Veronica's  affairs.  He  was  really 
very  bright  and  clever,  with  a  sort  of  conversational 
boldness  that  was  just  within  the  limits  of  permissible 
daring.  She  described  the  Goopes  and  the  Fabians  to 
him,  and  gave  him  a  sketch  of  her  landlady;  and  he 
talked  in  the  most  liberal  and  entertaining  way  of  a 


ANN   VERONICA 

modern  young  woman's  outlook.  He  seemed  to  know 
a  great  deal  about  life.  He  gave  glimpses  of  possibilities. 
He  roused  curiosities.  He  contrasted  wonderfully  with 
the  empty  showing-off  of  Teddy.  His  friendship  seemed 
| a  thing  worth  having.  .  .  . 

BuJ/when  she  was  thinking  it  over  in  her  room  that 
evening  vague  and  baffling  doubts  came  drifting  across 
this  conviction.  She  doubted  how  she  stood  toward  him 
and  what  the  restrained  gleam  of  his  face  might  signify. 
She  felt  that  perhaps,  in  her  desire  to  play  an  adequate 
part  in  the  conversation,  she  had  talked  rather  more 
freely  than  she  ought  to  have  done,  and  given  him  a 
wrong  impression  of  herself. 


§  7 

That  was  two  days  before  Christmas  Eve.  The  next 
morning  came  a  compact  letter  from  her  father. 

"Mv  DEAR  DAUGHTER,"  it  ran, — "Here,  on  ike  verge 
of  the  season  of  forgiveness  I  hold  out  a  last  hand  to  you 
in  the  hope  of  a  reconciliation.  I  ask  you,  although  it  is 
not  my  place  to  ask  you,  to  return  home.  This  roof  is 
still  open  to  you.  You  will  not  be  taunted  if  you  return, 
and  everything  that  can  be  done  will  be  done  to  make  you 
happy. 

"Indeed,  I  must  implore  you  to  return.  This  adventure 
of  yours  has  gone  on  altogether  too  long;  it  has  become  a 
serious  distress  to  both  your  aunt  and  myself.  We_jail 
altogether  to  understand  your  motives  in  doing  ivhat  you 
are  doing,  or,  indeed,  how  you  are  managing  to  do  it,  or 

164 


IDEALS   AND   A    REALITY 

what  you  are  managing  on.  If  you  will  think  only  of  one 
trifling  aspect— fthe  inconvenience  it  must  be  to  us  to  ex- 
\  plain  your  absence\-I  think  you  may  begin  to  realize  what 
it  all  means  for  us.  I  need  hardly  say  that  your  aunt 
joins  with  me  very  heartily  in  this  request. 

"Please  come  home.  You  will  not  find  me  unreasonable 
with  you. 

"Your  affectionate 

"FATHER." 

Ann  Veronica  sat  over  her  fire  with  her  father's  note 
in  her  hand.  "Queer  letters  he  writes,"  she  said.  "I 
suppose  most  peonle's  letters  are  queer.  (  Roof  open — 
like  a  Noah's  Ark.\  I  wonder  if  he  really  wants  me  to 
go  home.  It's  odn  how  little  I  know  of  him,  and  of 
how  he  feels  and  what  he  feels. 

"I  wonder  how  he  treated  Gwen." 

Her  mind  drifted  into  a  speculation  about  her  sister. 
"I  ought  to  look  up  Gwen,"  she  said.  "I  wonder  what 
happened." 

Then  she  fell  to  thinking  about  her  aunt.  "I  would 
like  to  go  home,"  she  cried,  "to  please  her.  She  has 
been  a  dear.  Considering  how  little  he  lets  her  have." 

The  truth  prevailed.  "The  unaccountable  thing  is 
that  I  wouldn't  go  home  to  please  her.  She  is,  in  her 
way,  a  dear.  One  ought  to  want  to  please  her.  And  I 
don't.  I  don't  care.  I  can't  even  make  myself  care." 

Presently,  as  if  for  comparison  with  her  father's  letter, 
she  got  out  Ramage's  check  from  the  box  that  contained 
her  papers.  For  so  far  she  had  kept  it  uncashed.  She 
had  not  even  endorsed  it. 

"Suppose  I  chuck  it,"  she  remarked,  standing  with 

165 


ANN    VERONICA 

the  mauve  slip  in  her  hand — "suppose  I  chuck  it,  and 
surrender  and  go  home!  Perhaps,  after  all,  Roddy 
was  light! 

"Father  keeps  opening  the  door  and  shutting  it,  but 
a  time  will  come — 

"I     could     still    go     home!" 

She  held  Ramage's  check  as  if  to  tear  it  across.  "  No," 
she  said  at  last ;\"  I'm  a  human  being — not  a  timid  fe- 
male. What  could  I  do  at  home?  The  other's  a 
crumple-up — just  surrender.  Funk!  I'll  see  it  out. ' 


CHAPTER    THE    EIGHTH 

BIOLOGY 
§   I 

JANUARY  found  Ann  Veronica  a  student  in  the 
biological  laboratory  of  the  Central  Imperial  Col- 
lege that  towers  up  from  among  the  back  streets  in 
the  angle  between  Euston  Road  and  Great  Portland 
Street.  She  was  working  very  steadily  at  the  Advanced 
Course  in  Comparative  Anatomy,  ^wonderfully  relieved 
to  have  her  mind  engaged  upon  one  methodically  devel- 
oping theme  in  the  place  of  the  discursive  uncertainties 
of  the  previous  two  months^  and  doing  her  utmost  to 
keep  right  in  the  back  of  her  mind  and  out  of  sight  the 
facts,  firstly,  that  she  had  achieved  this  haven  of  sat- 
isfactory activity  by  incurring  a  debt  to  Ramage  of 
forty  pounds,  and,  secondly,  that  her  present  position 
was  necessarily  temporary  and  her  outlook  quite  un- 
certain . 

The  biological  laboratory  had  an  atmosphere  that 
was  all  its  own.  It  was  at  the  top  of  the  building,  and 
looked  clear  over  a  clustering  mass  of  inferior  buildings 
toward  Regent's  Park.  It  was  long  and  narrow,  a  well- 
lit,  well- ventilated,  quiet  gallery  of  small  tables  and 
sinks,  pervaded  by  a  thin  smell  of  methylated  spirit 


ANN    VERONICA 


. 


and  of(a  mitigated  and  sterilized  organic  decayy   Along 
the  inner  side  was  a  wonderfully  arranged  series  of  dis- 
played specimens  that   Russell   himself  had  prepared. 
The  supreme-effect  for  Ann  Veronica  was  its  surpassing 
relevance; (it  made  every  other  atmosphere  she  knew 
seem  discursive  and  confusedA    The  whole  place  and 
everything  in  it  aimed  at  one  thing — to  illustrate,  to 
,p1aKrvra*f,    tn    rritaVi««*   ftflfl    illuminate,    and    make   ever 
plainer  and  plainer  the  significance  of  animal  and  vege- 
table structure.     It  dealt  from  floor  to  ceiling  and  end 
to  end  with  the  Theory  of  the  Forms  of  Life;  the  very 
duster  by  the  blackboard  was  there  to  do  its  share  in 
that  work,  the  very  washers  in  the  taps ;( the  room  was 
more  simply  concentrated  in  aim  even  than  a  church.  \ 
To  that,  perhaps,  a  large  part  of  its  satisfyingness  was 
due.     Contrasted   with    the    confused    movement    and 
presences  of  a  Fabian  meeting,  or'  the  inexplicable  en- 
thusiasmTbehind  the  suffrage  demand?)  with  the  speeches 
that  were  partly  egotistical  displays,  partly  artful  ma- 
noeuvres, and  partly  incoherent  cries  for  unsoundly  for- 
mulated ends,  compared  with  the  comings  and  goings 
of  audiences  and  supporters  that  were  like  the  eddy- 
driven  drift  of  paper  in  the  street,  this  long,  quiet,  me- 
thodical chamber  shone  like  a  star  seen  through  clouds. 
Day  after  day  for  a  measured  hour  in  the  lecture- 
theatre,   with   elaborate   power   and   patience,    Russell 
pieced  together  difficulty  and  suggestion,  instance  and 
counter-instance,  in  the  elaborate  construction  of  the 
family  tree  of  life.     And  then  the  students  went  into 
the  long  laboratory  and  followed  out  these  facts  in  al- 
most living  tissue  with  microscope  and  scalpel,  probe 
and  microtome,  and  the  utmost  of  their  skill  and  care, 

1 68 


BIOLOGY 

making  now  and  then  a  raid  into  the  compact  museum 
of  illustration  next  door,  in  which  specimens  and  models 
and  directions  stood  in  disciplined  ranks,  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  demonstrator  Capes.  There  was  a  couple 
of  blackboards  at  each  end  of  the  aisle  of  tables,  and  at 
these  Capes,  with  quick  and  nervous  speech  that  con- 
trasted vividly  with  Russell's  slow,  definitive  articulation, 
directed  the  dissection  and  made  illuminating  com- 
ments on  the  structures  under  examination.  Then 
he  would  come  along  the  laboratory,  sitting  down  by 
each  student  in  turn,  checking  the  work  and  discussing 
its  difficulties,  and  answering  questions  arising  out  of 
Russell's  lecture. 

Ann  Veronica  had  come  to  the  Imperial  College 
obsessed  by  the  great  figure  of  Russell,  by  the  part  he 
had  played  in  the  Darwinian  controversies,  and  by  the 
resolute  effect  of  the  grim-lipped,  yellow,  leonine  face 
beneath  the  mane  of  silvery  hair.  Capes  was  rather  a 
discovery.  Capes  was  something  superadded.  Russell 
burned  like  a  beacon,  but  Capes  illuminated  by  darting 
flashes  and  threw  light,  even  if  it  was  but  momentary 
light,  into  a  hundred  corners  that  Russell  left  stead- 
fastly in  the.  shade. 

Capes  was  an  exceptionally  fair  man  of  two  or  three- 
and-thirty,  so  ruddily  blond  that  it  was  a  mercy  he  had 
escaped  light  eyelashes,  and  with  a  minor  but  by  no 
means  contemptible  reputation  of  his  own.  He  talked 
at  the  blackboard  in  a  pleasant,  very  slightly  lisping 
voice  with  a  curious  spontaneity,  and  was  sometimes 
very  clumsy  in  his  exposition,  and  sometimes  very  vivid. 
He  dissected  rather  awkwardly  and  hurriedly,  but,  on 
the  whole,  effectively,  and  drew  with  an  impatient  di- 

169 


ANN    VERONICA 

rectness  that  made  up  in  significance  what  it  lacked  in 
precision.  Across  the  blackboard  the  colored  chalks 
flew  like  flights  of  variously  tinted  rockets  as  diagram 
after  diagram  flickered  into  being. 

There  happened  that  year  'to  be  an  unusual  proportion 
of  girls  and  women  in  the  advanced  laboratory,  per- 
haps because  the  class  as  a  whole  was  an  exceptionally 
small  one.  It  numbered  nine,  and  four  of  these  were 
women  students.  As  a  consequence  of  its  small  size, 
it  was  possible  to  get  along  with  the  work  on  a  much 
easier  and  more  colloquial  footing  than  a  larger  class 
would  have  permitted.  And  a  custom  had  grown  up  of 
a  general  tea  at  four  o'clock,  under  the  auspices  of  a 
Miss  Garvice,  a  tall  and  graceful  girl  of  distinguished 
intellectual  incompetence,  in  whom  the  hostess  instinct 
seemed  to  be  abnormally  developed. 

Capes  would  come  to  these  teas;  he  evidently  liked 
to  come,  and  he  would  appear  in  the  doorway  of  the 
preparation-room,  a  pleasing  note  of  shyness  in  his  man- 
ner, hovering  for  an  invitation. 

From  the  first,  Ann  Veronica  found  him  an  excep- 
tionally interesting  man.  To  begin  with,  he  struck  her 
as  being  the  most  variable  person  she  had  ever  en- 
countered. At  times  he  was  brilliant  and  masterful, 
talked  round  and  over  every  one,  and  would  have  been 
domineering  if  he  had  not  been  extraordinarily  kindly; 
at  times  he  was  almost  monosyllabic,  and  defeated  Miss 
Garvice's  most  skilful  attempts  to  draw  him  out.  Some- 
times he  was  obviously  irritable  and  uncomfortable  and 
unfortunate  in  his  efforts  to  seem  at  ease.  And  some- 
times he  overflowed  with  a  peculiarly  malignant  wit  that 
played,  with  devastating  effect,  upon  any  topics  that 

170 


BIOLOGY 

had  the  courage  to  face  it.  Ann  Veronica's  experiences 
of  men  had  been  among  more  stable  types — Teddy,  who 
was  always  absurd;  her  father,  who  was  always  au- 
thoritative and  sentimental;  Manning,  who  was  always 
Manning.  And  most  of  the  others  she  had  met  had, 
she  felt,  the  same  steadfastness.  Goopes,  she  was  sure, 
was  always  high-browed  and  slow  and  Socratic.  And 
Rarnage  too — about  Ramage  there  would  always  be 
that  air  of  avidity,  that  air  of  knowledge  and  inquiry, 
the  mixture  of  things  in  his  talk  that  were  rather  good 
with  things  that  were  rather  poor.  But  one  could  not 
count  with  any  confidence  upon  Capes. 

The  five  men  students  were  a  mixed  company.  There 
was  a  very  white-faced  youngster  of  eighteen  who 
brushed  back  his  hair  exactly  in  Russell's  manner,  and 
was  disposed  to  be  uncomfortably  silent  when  he  was 
near  her,  and  to  whom  she  felt  it  was  only  Christian 
kindness  to  be  consistently  pleasant;  and  a  lax  young 
man  of  five-and-twenty  in  navy  blue,  who  mingled  Marx 
and  Bebel  with  the  more  orthodox  gods  of  the  biological 
pantheon.  There  was  a  short,  red-faced,  resolute  youth, 
who  inherited  an  authoritative  attitude  upon  bacteriol- 
ogy from  his  father;  a  Japanese  student  of  unassuming 
manners  who  drew  beautifully  and  had  an  imperfect 
knowledge  of  English;  and  a  dark,  unwashed  Scotch- 
man with  complicated  spectacles,  who  would  come 
every  morning  as  a  sort  of  volunteer  supplementary  dem- 
onstrator, look  very  closely  at  her  work  and  her,  tell 
her  that  her  dissections  were  "  fairish,"  or  "  very  fairish 
indeed,"  or  <rhigh  above  the  normal  female  standard," 
hover  as  if  for  some  outbreak  of  passionate  gratitude, 
and  with  admiring  retrospects  that  made  the  facetted 
"  171 


ANN    VERONICA 

spectacles    gleam   like   diamonds,   return    to    his    own 
place. 

The  women,  Ann  Veronica  thought,  were  not  quite 
so  interesting  as  the  men.  There  were  two  school- 
mistresses, one  of  whom — Miss  Klegg — might  have  been 
a  first  cousin  to  Miss  Miniver,  she  had  so  many  Miniver 
traits;  there  was  a  preoccupied  girl  whose  name  Ann 
Veronica  never  learned,  but  who  worked  remarkably 
well;  and  Miss  Garvice,  who  began  by  attracting  her 
very  greatly — she  moved  so  beautifully — and  ended  by 
giving  her  the  impression  that  moving  beautifully  was 
the  beginning  and  end  of  her  being. 


§  2 

The  next  few  weeks  were  a  time  of  the  very  liveliest 
thought  and  growth  for  Ann  Veronica.  The  crowding 
impressions  of  the  previous  weeks  seemed  to  run  to- 
gether directly  her  mind  left  the  chaotic  search  for  em- 
ployment and  came  into  touch  again  with  a  coherent 
and  systematic  development  of  ideas.  The  advanced 
work  at  the  Central  Imperial  College  was  in  the  closest 
touch  with  living  interests  and  current  controversies; 
it  drew  its  illustrations  and  material  from  Russell's  two 
great  researches — upon  the  relation  of  the  brachiopods 
to  the  echinodermata,  and  upon  the  secondary  and 
tertiary  mammalian  and  pseudo-mammalian  factors  in 
the  free  larval  forms  of  various  marine  organisms.  More- 
over, a  vigorous  fire  of  mutual  criticism  was  going  on  now 
between  the  Imperial  College  and  the  Cambridge  Men- 
delians  and  echoed  in  the  lectures.  From  beginning  to 
end  it  was  first-hand  stuff. 

172 


BIOLOGY 

But  the  influence  of  the  science  radiated  far  beyond 
its  own  special  field  —  beyond  those  beautiful  but  highly 
technical  problems  with  which  we  do  not  propose  for  a 
moment  to  trouble  the  naturally  terrified  reader.  Bi- 
ology is  an  extraordinarily  aigesiive^science.  It  throws 
out  a  number  of  broad  experimental  generalizations,  and 
then  sets  out  to  bring  into  harmony  or  relation  with 
these  an  infinitely  multifarious  collection  of  phenomena. 
The  little  streaks  upon  the  germinating  area  of  an  egg, 
the  nervous  movements  of  an  impatient  horse,  the  trick 
of  a  calculating  boy,  the  senses  of  a  fish,  the  fungus  at 
the  root  of  a  garden  flower,  and  the  slime  upon  a  sea- 
wet  rock  —  ten  thousand  such  things  bear  their  witness 
and  are  illuminated.  And  not  only  did  these  tentacular 
generalizations  gather  all  the  facts  of  natural  history 
and  comparative  anatomy  together,  but  they  seemed 
always  stretching  out  further  and  further  into  a  world 
of  interests  that  lay  altogether  outside  their  legitimate 


It  came  to  Ann  Veronica  one  night  after  a  long  talk 
with  Miss  Miniver,  as  a  sudden  remarkable  thing,  as  a 
grotesque,  novel  aspect,  that  this  slowly  elaborating 
biological  scheme  ftad  something  more  than  an  academic 
interest  for  herself.  And  not  only  so,  but  that  it  was, 
after  alljTa  more  systematic  and  particular  method  of 
examining  just  the\same  questions  that  underlay  the 
discussions  of  the  Fabian  Society,  the  talk  of  the  West 
Central  Arts  Club,  the  chatter  of  the  studios  and  the 
deep,  the  bottomless  discussions  of  the  simple-life  homes* 
It  was  the  same  Bios  whose  nature  and  drift  and  ways 
and  methods  and  aspects  engaged  them  all.  And  she, 
she  in  her  own  person  too,  was  this  eternal  Bios,  begin- 

173 


ANN   VERONICA 

ning  again  its  recurrent  journey  to  selection  and  multi- 
plication and  failure  or  survival. 

But  this  was  but  a  momentary  gleam  of  personal  ap- 
plication, and  at  this  time  she  followed  it  up  no  further. 

And  now  Ann  Veronica's  evenings  were  also  becoming 
very  busy.  She  pursued  her  interest  in  the  Socialist 
movement  and  in  the  Suffragist  agitation  in  the  company 
of  Miss  Miniver.  They  went  to  various  central  and 
local  Fabian  gatherings,  and  to  a  number  of  suffrage 
meetings.  Teddy  Widgett  hovered  on  the  fringe  of  all 
these  gatherings,  blinking  at  Ann  Veronica  and  oc- 
casionally making  a  wildly  friendly  dash  at  her,  and 
carrying  her  and  Miss  Miniver  off  to  drink  cocoa  with  a 
choice  diversity  of  other  youthful  and  congenial  Fabians 
after  the  meetings.  Then  Mr.  Manning  loomed  up  ever 
and  again  into  her  world,  full  of  a  futile  solicitude,  and 
almost  always  declaring  she  was  splendid,  splendid,  and 
wishing  he  could  talk  things  out  with  her.  Teas  he  con- 
tributed to  the  commissariat  of  Ann  Veronica's  cam- 
paign— quite  a  number  of  teas.  He  would  get  her  to 
come  to  tea  with  him,  usually  in  a  pleasant  tea-room 
over  a  fruit-shop  in  Tottenham  Court  Road,  and  he 
would  discuss  his  own  point  of  view  and  hint  at  a  thou- 
sand devotions  were  she  but  to  command  him.  And 
he  would  express  various  artistic  sensibilities  and 
aesthetic  appreciations  in  carefully  punctuated  sentences 
and  a  large,  clear  voice.  At  Christmas  he  gave  her  a 
set  of  a  small  edition  of  Meredith's  novels,  very  prettily 
bound  in  flexible  leather,  being  guided  in  the  choice  of  an 
author,  as  he  intimated,  rather  by  her  preferences  than 
his  own. 

There  was  something  markedly  and  deliberately 

174 


BIOLOGY 

liberal-minded  in  his  manner  in  all  their  encounters. 
He  conveyed  not  only  his  sense  of  the  extreme  want  of 
correctitude  in  their  tmsanctioned  meetings,  but  also 
that,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  this  irregularity  mat- 
tered not  at  all,  that  he  had  flung — and  kept  on  flinging 
— such  considerations  to  the  wind. 

And,  in  addition,  she  was  now  seeing  and  talking  to 
Ramage  almost  weekly,  on  a  theory  which  she  took  very 
gravely,  that  they  were  exceptionally  friends.  He  would 
ask  her  to  come  to  dinner  with  him  in  some  little  Italian 
or  semi-Bohemian  restaurant  in  the  district  toward 
Soho,  or  in  one  of  the  more  stylish  and  magnificent  es- 
tablishments about  Piccadilly  Circus,  and  for  the  most 
part  she  did  not  care  to  refuse.  Nor,  indeed,  did  she 
want  to  refuse.  These  dinners,  from  their  lavish  display 
of  ambiguous  hors  d'ceuvre  to  their  skimpy  ices  in  dishes 
of  frilled  paper,  with  their  Chianti  flasks  and  Parmesan 
dishes  and  their  polyglot  waiters  and  polyglot  clientele, 
were  very  funny  and  bright;  and  she  really  liked  Ramage, 
and  valued  his  help  and  advice.  It  was  interesting  to 
see  how  different  and  characteristic  his  mode  of  approach 
was  to  all  sorts  of  questions  that  interested  her,  and 
it  was  amusing  to  discover  this  other  side  to  the  life  of  a 
Morningside  Park  inhabitant.  She  had  thought  that 
all  Morningside  Park  householders  came  home  before 
seven  at  the  latest,  as  her  father  usually  did.  Ramage 
talked  always  about  women  or  some  woman's  concern, 
and  very  much  about  Ann  Veronica's  own  outlook  upon 
life.  He  was  always  drawing  contrasts  between  a  wom- 
an's lot  and  a  man's,  and  treating  her  as  a  wonderful  new 
departure  in  this  comparison.  Ann  Veronica  liked  their 
relationship  all  the  more  because  it  was  an  unusual  one. 


ANN    VERONICA 

After  these  dinners  they  would  have  a  walk,  usually 
to  the  Thames  Embankment  to  see  the  two  sweeps  of 
river  on  either  side  of  Waterloo  Bridge ;  and  then  they 
would  part  at  Westminster  Bridge,  perhaps,  and  he 
would  go  on  to  Waterloo.  Once  he  suggested  they 
should  go  to  a  music-hall  and  see  a  wonderful  new 
dancer,  but  Ann  Veronica  did  not  feel  she  cared  to  see  a 
new  dancer.  So,  instead,  they  talked  o£-"tlancing  and 
what  it  might  mean  in  a  human  life.  {Ann  Veronica 
thought  it  was  a  spontaneous  release  of  energy  expressive 
of  well-being,  but  Ramage  thought  that  by  dancing, 
men,  and  such  birds  and  animals  as  dance,  come  to  feel 
and  think  of  their  bodies.  J 

This  ( intercourse^  which  had  been  planned  to  warm 
Ann  Veronica  to  a  familiar  affection  with  Ramage,  was 
certainly  warming  Ramage  to  a  constantly  deepening  in- 
terest in  Ann  Veronica.  He  felt  that  he  was  getting  on 
with  her  very  slowly  indeed,  but  he  did  not  see  how  he 
could  get  on  faster.  He  had,  he  felt,  to  create  certain 
ideas  and  vivify  certain  curiosities  and  feelings  in  her. 
Until  that  was  done  a  certain  experience  of  life  assured 
him  that  a  girl  is  a  locked  coldness  against  a  man's 
approach.  She  had  all  the  fascination  of  being  absolute- 
ly perplexing  in  this  respect.  On  the  one  hand,  she 
seemed  to  think  plainly  and  simply,  and  would  talk 
serenely  and  freely  about  topics  that  most  women  have 
been  trained  either  to  avoid  or  conceal ;  and  on  the  other 
she  was  unconscious,  or  else  she  had  an  air  of  being  un- 
conscious— that  was  the  riddle — to  all  sorts  of  personal 
applications  that  almost  any  girl  or  woman,  one  might 
have~~tH6~ught,  would  have  made.  He  was  always  do- 
ing his  best  to  call  her  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  was  a 


BIOLOGY 

man  of  spirit  and  quality  and  experience,  and  she  a 
young  and  beautiful  woman,  and  that  all  sorts  of  con- 
structions upon  their  relationship  were  possible,  trusting 
her  to  go  on  from  that  to  the  idea  that  all  sorts  of  re- 
lationships were  possible.  She  responded  with  an  un- 
faltering appearance  of  insensibility,  and  (never  as  a 
young  and  beautiful  woman  conscious  of  sex;  always  in 
the  character  of  an  intelligent  girl  studenfTS 

His  perception  of  her  personal  beauty  deepened  and 
quickened  with  each  encounter.  Every  now  and  then 
her  general  presence  became  radiantly  dazzling  in  his 
eyes;  she  would  appear  in  the  street  coming  toward  him, 
a  surprise,  so  fine  and  smiling  and  welcoming  was  she,  so 
expanded  and  illuminated  and  living,  in  contrast  with 
his  mere  expectation.  Or  he  would  find  something — 
a  wave  in  her  hair,  a  little  line  in  the  contour  of  her  brow 
or  neck,  that  made  an  exquisite  discovery. 

He  was  beginning  to  think  about  her  inordinately. 
He  would  sit  in  his  inner  office  and  compose  conversa- 
tions with  her,  penetrating,  illuminating,  and  nearly 
conclusive — conversations  that  never  proved  to  be  of  the 
slightest  use  at  all  with  her  when  he  met  her  face  to  face. 
And  he  began  also  at  times  to  wake  at  night  and  think 
about  her. 

He  thought  of  her  and  himself,  and  no  longer  in  that 
vein  of  incidental  adventure  in  which  he  had  begun.  He 
thought,  too,  of  the  fretful  invalid  who  lay  in  the  next 
room  to  his,  whose  money  had  created  his  business  and 
made  his  position  in  the  world. 

"I've  had  most  of  the  things  I  wanted,"  said  Ramage, 
in  the  stillness  of  the  night. 


ANN    VERONICA 

§3 

For  a  time  Ann  Veronica's  family  had  desisted 
from  direct  offers  of  a  free  pardon;  they  were  evidently 
waiting  for  her  resources  to  come  to  an  end.  Neither 
father,  aunt,  nor  brothers  made  a  sign,  and  then  one 
afternoon  in  early  February  her  aunt  came  up  in  a  state 
between  expostulation  and  dignified  resentment,  but 
obviously  yefy-x anxious  for  Ann  Veronica's  welfare. 
"I  had  a  dream1  in  the  night,"  she  said.  "I  saw  you 
in  a  sort  of  sloping,  slippery  place,  holding  on  by  your 
hands  and  slipping.  You  seemed  to  me  to  be  slipping 
and  slipping,  and  your  face  was  white.  It  was  really 
most  vivid,  most  vivid!  You  seemed  to  be  slipping 
and  just  going  to  tumble  and  holding  on.  It  made 
me  wake  up,  and  there  I  lay  thinking  of  you,  spending 
your  nights  up  here  all  alone,  and  no  one  to  look  after 
you.  I  wondered  what  you  could  be  doing  and  what 
might  be  happening  to  you.  I  said  to  myself  at  once, 
'Either  this  is  a  coincidence  or  the  caper  sauce.'  But 
I  made  sure  it  was  you.  I  felt  I  must  do  something 
anyhow,  and  up  I  came  just  as  soon  as  I  could  to  see 
you." 

She  had  spoken  rather  rapidly.  "I  can't  help  saying 
it,"  she  said,  with  the  quality  of  her  voice  altering, 
"but  I  do  not  think  it  is  right  for  an  unprotected  girl 
to  be  in  London  alone  as  you  are." 

"  But  I'm  quite  equal  to  taking  care  of  myself,  aunt." 

("It  must  be  most  uncomfortable  here?.  ^  It  is  most 
uncomfortable  for  every  one  concerned.^/  ^ft^iA' 

She  spoke  with  a  certain  asperity.  She  felt  that 
Ann  Veronica  had  duped  her  in  that  dream,  and  now 


BIOLOGY 

ttfat  she  had  come  up  to  London  she  might  as  well 
speak  her  mind. 

"No  Christmas  dinner,"  she  said,  "or  anything 
nice!  One  doesn't  even  know  what  you  are  doing." 

"I'm  going  on  working  for  my  degree." 

"Why  couldn't  you  do  that  at  home?" 

"I'm  working  at  the  Imperial  College.  You  see, 
aunt,  it's  the  only  possible  way  for  me  to  get  a  good 
degree  in  my  subjects,  and  father  won't  hear  of  it. 
There'd  only  be  endless  rows  if  I  was  at  home.  And 
how  could  I  come  home — when  he  locks  me  in  rooms 
and  all  that?" 

"I  do  wish  this  wasn't  going  on,"  said  Miss  Stanley, 
after  a  pause.  "I  do  wish  you  and  your  father  could 
come  to  some  agreement." 

Ann  Veronica  responded  with  conviction:  "I  wish  so, 
too." 

"  Can't  we  arrange  something  ?  Can't  we  make  a  sort 
of  treaty?" 

"He  wouldn't  keep  it.  He  would  get  very  cross 
one  evening  and  no  one  would  dare  to  remind  him  of 
it." 

"How  can  you  say  such  things?" 

"But  he  would!" 

"Still,  it  isn't  your  place  to  say  so." 

"It  prevents  a  treaty." 

"Couldn't  /  make  a  treaty?" 

Ann  Veronica  thought,  and  could  not  see  any  possible 
treaty  that  would  leave  it  open  for  her  to  have  quasi- 
surreptitious  dinners  with  Ramage  or  go  on  walking 
round  the  London  squares  discussing  Socialism  with 
Miss  Miniver  toward  the  small  hours.  She  had  tasted 

179 


ANN    VERONICA 

freedom  now,  and  so  far  she  had  not  felt  the  need 
of  protection.  Still,  there  certainly  was  something  in 
the  idea  of  a  treaty. 

"I  don't  see  at  all  how  you  can  be  managing,"  said 
Miss  Stanley,  and  Ann  Veronica  hastened  to  reply,  "  I 
do  on  very  little."  Her  mind  went  back  to  that  treaty. 

"And  aren't  there  fees  to  pay  at  the  Imperial  College  ?" 
her  aunt  was  saying — a  disagreeable  question. 

"There  are  a  few  fees." 

"Then  how  have  you  managed?'* 

"Bother!"  said  Ann  Veronica  to  herself,  and  tried 
not  to  look  guilty.  "  I  was  able  to  borrow  the 
money." 

"  Borrow  the  money !     But  who  lent  you  the  money  ? " 

"A  friend,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

She  felt  herself  getting  into  a  corner.  She  sought 
hastily  in  her  mind  for  a  plausible  answer  to  an  obvious 
question  that  didn't  come.  Her  aunt  went  off  at  a 
tangent.  "But  my  dear  Ann  Veronica,  you  will  be 
getting  into  debt!" 

Ann  Veronica  at  once^arul  with  a  feeling  of  immense 
relief,  took  refuge  in  herydignit}^.  "I  think,  aunt,"  she 
said,  "you  might  trust  to  my  self-respect  to  keep  me  out 
of  that." 

For  the  moment  her  aunt  could  not  think  of  any 
reply  to  this  counterstroke,  and  Ann  Veronica  followed 
up  her  advantage  by  a  sudden  inquiry  about  her  aban- 
doned boots. 

But  in  the  train  going  home  her  aunt  reasoned  it 
out. 

"If  she  is  borrowing  money,"  said  Miss  Stanley, 
"she  must  be  getting  into  debt.  It's  all  nonsense.  ..." 

1 80 


BIOLOGY 

§  4 

It  was  by  imperceptible  degrees  that  Capes  became 
important  in  Ann  Veronica's  thoughts.  But  then  he 
began  to  take  steps,  and,  at  last,  strides  to  something 
more  and  more  like  predominance.  She  began  by 
being  interested  in  his  demonstrations  and  his  biological 
theory,  then  she  was  attracted  by  his  character,  and  then, 
in  a  manner,  f she  fell  in  love  with  his  mind^ 

One  day  they  were  at  tea  in  the  laboratory  and  a 
discussion  sprang  up  about  the  question  of  women's 
suffrage.  The  movement  was  then  in  its  earlier  militant 
phases,  and  one  of  the  women  only,  Miss  Garvice, 
opposed  it,  though  Ann  Veronica  was  disposed  to  be 
lukewarm.  But  a  man's  opposition  always  inclined 
her  to  the  suffrage  side '/she  had  a  curious  feeling  Q| 
loyalty  in  seeing  the  mote  aggressive  women  through.) 
Capes  was  irritatingly  judicial  in  the  matter,  neither 
absurdly  against,  in  which  case  one  might  have  smashed 
him,  or  hopelessly  undecided,  but  tepidly  sceptical. 
Miss  Klegg  and  the  youngest  girl  made  a  vigorous  attack 
on  Miss  Garvice,  who  had  said  she  thought  women  lost 
something  infinitely  precious  by  mingling  in  the  con- 
flicts of  life.  The  discussion  wandered,  and  was  punctu- 
ated with  bread  and  butter.  Capes  was  inclined  to 
support  Miss  Klegg  until  Miss  Garvice  cornered  him 
by  quoting  him  against  himself,  and  citing  a  recent 
paper  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  in  which,  following 
Atkinson,  he  had  made  a  vigorous  and  damaging  attack 
on  Lester  Ward's  case  for  the  primitive  matriarchate 
and  the  predominant  importance  of  the  female  through- 
out the  animal  kingdom. 

181 


ANN    VERONICA 

Ann  Veronica  was  not  aware  of  this  literary  side 
of  her  teacher;  she  had  a  little  tinge  of  annoyance  at 
Miss  Garvice's  advantage.  Afterwards  she  hunted 
up  the  article  in  question,  and  it  seemed  to  her  quite 
delightfully  written  and  argued.  Capes  had  the  gift  of 
easy,  unaffected  writing,  coupled  with  very  clear  and 
logical  thinking,  and  to  follow  his  written  thought  gave 
her  the  sensation  of  cutting  things  with  a  perfectly 
new,  perfectly  sharp  knife.  She  found  herself  anxious 
to  read  more  of  him,  and  the  next  Wednesday  she  went 
to  the  British  Museum  and  hunted  first  among  the 
half-crown  magazines  for  his  essays  and  then  through 
various  scientific  quarterlies  for  his  research  papers. 
The  ordinary  research  paper,  when  it  is  not  extravagant 
theorizing,  is  apt  to  be  rather  sawdusty  in  texture, 
and  Ann  Veronica  was  delighted  to  find  the  same  easy 
and  confident  luminosity  that  distinguished  his  work 
for  the  general  reader.  She  returned  to  these  latter, 
and  at  the  back  of  her  mind,  as  she  looked  them  over 
again,  was  a  very  distinct  resolve  to  quote  them  after 
the  manner  of  Miss  Garvice  at  the  very  first  oppor- 
tunity. 

When  she  got  home  to  her  lodgings  that  evening  she 
reflected  with  something  like  surprise  upon  her  half- 
day's  employment,  and  decided  that  it  showed  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  that  Capes  was  a  really  very  inter- 
esting person  indeed. 

And  then  she  fell  into  a  musing  about  Capes.  She 
wondered  why  he  was  so  distinctive,  so  unlike  other 
men,  and  it  never  occurred  to  her  for  some  time  that 
this  might  be  because  she  was  falling  in  love  with 
him. 

182 


BIOLOGY 


Yet  Ann  Veronica  was  thinking  a  very  great  deal 
about  love.  A  dozen  shynesses  ^  and  intellectual  bar- 
riers were  being  outflanked  or  broken  down  in  her  mind. 
All  the  influences  about  her  worked  with  her  own  pre- 
disposition and  against  all  the  traditions  of  her  home 
and  upbringing  to  deal  with  the  facts  of  life  in  an  un- 
abashed manner.  Ramage,  by  a  hundred  skilful  hints, 
had  led  her  to  realize  that  the  problem  of  her  own  life 
was  inseparably  associated  with,  and  indeed  only  one 
special  case  of,  the  problems  of  any  woman's  life,  and 
that  the  problem  of  a  woman's  life  is  love. 

"A  young  man  comes  into  life  asking  how  best  he 
may  place  himself,"  Ramage  had  said;  "a  woman 
comes  into  life  thinking  instinctively  how  best  she  may 
give  herself." 

She  noted  that  as  a  good  saying,  and(it  germinated 
and  spread  tentacles  of  explanation^  through  her  brain. 
The  biological  laboratory,  perpetually  viewing  life  as 
pairing  and  breeding  and  selection,  and  again  pairing 
and  breeding,  seemed  only  a  translated  generalization 
of  that  assertion.  And  all  the  talk  of  the  Miniver  peo- 
ple  and  the  Widgett  people  seemed  always  to  be  like  a 
ship  in  adverse  weather  on  the  lee  shore  of  love.  "  For 
seven  years,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "I  have  been  trying 
to  keep  myself  from  thinking  about  love.  .  .  . 

"I  have  been  training  myself  to  look  askance  at 
beautiful  things." 

She  gave  herself  permission  now  to  look  at  this  square- 
ly. She  made  herself  a  private  declaration  of  liberty. 
"This  is  mere  nonsense,  mere  tongue-tied  fear!"  she 

183 


ANN   VERONICA 

said.  "This  is  the  slavery  of  the  veiled  life.  I  might 
as  well  be  at  Morningside  Park.  This  business  of  love 
is  the  supreme  affair  in  life,  it  is  the  woman's  one  event 
andc^cnste  that  makes  up  for  all  her  other  restrictions, 
an(TT""cower— as  we  all  cower — with  a  blushing  and 
paralyzed  mind  until  it  overtakes  me!  .  .  . 

"I'll  be^Kanged  if  I  do." 

But  she  could  not  talk  freely  about  love,  she  found, 
for  all  that  manumission. 

Ramage  seemed  always  fencing  about  the  forbidden 
topic, (probing  for  openingsTlahd  she  wondered  why  she 
did  not  give  him  them.  But  something  instinctive  pre- 
vented that,  and  with  the  finest  resolve  not  to  be  "  silly  " 
and  prudish  she  found  that  whenever  he  became  at  all 
bold  in  this  matter  she  became  severely  scientific  and 
impersonal,  almost  entomological  indeed,  in  her  method; 
she  killed  every  remark  as  he  made  it  and  pinned  it  out 
for  examination.  In  the  biological  laboratory  that  was 
their  invincible  tone.  But  she  disapproved  more  and 
more  of  her  own  mental  austerity.  Here  was  an  ex- 
perienced man  of  the  world,  her  friend,  who  evidently 
took  a  great  interest  in  this  supreme  topic  and  was  will- 
ing to  give  her  the  benefit  of  his  experiences!  Why 
should  not  she  be  at  her  ease  with  him?  Why  should 
not  she  know  things?  It  is  hard  enough  anyhow  for  a 
human  being  to  learn,  she  decided,  but  it  is  a  dozen  times 
more  difficult  than  it  need  be  because  of  all  this  locking 
of  the  lips  and  thoughts. 

She  contrived  to  break  down  the  barriers  of  shyness 
at  last  in  one  direction,  and  talked  one  night  of  love  and 
the  facts  of  love  with  Miss  Miniver. 

But  Miss  Miniver  was  highly  unsatisfactory.  She 
184 


BIOLOGY 

repeated  phrases  of  Mrs.  Goopes's:  "Advanced  people," 
she  said,  with  an  air  of  great  elucidation,  "  tend  to  gen- 
eralize love.  *  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best — all 
fnings"both  great  and  small.'  For  my  own  part  I  go 
about  loving." 

"  Yes,  but  men,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  plunging;  "  don't 
you  want  the  love  of  men  ?" 

For  some  seconds  they  remained  silent,  both  shocked 
by  this  question. 

Miss  Miniver  looked  over  her  glasses  at  her  friend 
almost  balefully.  "No!"  she  said,  at  last,  with  some- 
thing in  her  voice  that  reminded  Ann  Veronica  of  a 
sprung  tennis-racket. 

"I've  been  through  all  that,"  she  went  on,  after  a 
pause. 

She  spoke  slowly.  "  I  have  never  yet  met  a  man 
whose  intellect  I  could  respect." 

Ann  Veronica  looked  at  her  thoughtfully  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  decided  to  persist  on  principle. 

"  But  if  you  had?"  she  said. 

"  I  can't  imagine  it,"  said  Miss  Miniver.  "  And 
think,  think" — her  voice  sank — "of  the  horrible  coarse- 
ness!" 

"What  coarseness?"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  My  dear  Vee !"  Her  voice  became  very  low.  "  Don't 
you  know?" 

"Oh!    I  know—" 

"Well — "     Her  face  was  an  unaccustomed  pink. 

Ann  Veronica  ignored  her  friend's  confusion. 

"Don't  we  all  rather  humbug  about  the  coarseness? 
All  we  women,  I  mean,"  said  she.  She  decided  to  go 
on,  after  a  momentary  halt.  "We  pretend  bodies  are 

18$ 


ANN   VERONICA 

ugly.  Really  they  are  the  most  beautiful  things  in  the 
world.  We  pretend  we  never  think  of  everything  that 
makes  us  what  we  are." 

"  No,"  cried  Miss  Miniver,  almost  vehemently.  "  You 
are  wrong!  I  did  not  think  you  thought  such  things. 
Bodies!  Bodies!  Horrible  things!  We  are  souls. 
Love  lives  on  a  higher  plane.  We  are  not  animals.  If 
ever  I  did  meet  a  man  I  could  love,  I  should  love  him" 
— her  voice  dropped  again — "platonically." 

She  made  her  glasses  glint.  "Absolutely  platonical- 
ly," she  said.  "  Soul  to  soul." 

She  turned  her  face  to  the  fire,  gripped  her  hands 
upon  her  elbows,  and  drew  her  thin  shoulders  together 
in  a  shrug.  "Ugh!"  she  said. 

Ann  Veronica  watched  her  and  wondered  about  her. 

"We  do  not  want  the  men,"  said  Miss  Miniver;  "we 
do  not  want  them,  with  their  sneers  and  loud  laughter. 
Empty,  silly,  coarse  brutes.  Brutes!  They  are  the 
brute  still  with  us!  Science  some  day  may  teach  us  a 
way  to  do  without  them.  It  is  only  the  women  matter. 
It  is  not  every  sort  of  creature  needs — these  males. 
Some  have  no  males/1 

"""TThere's  green-fly,"  admitted  Ann  Veronica.     "  And 
even  then — " 

The  conversation  hung  for  a  thoughtful  moment. 

Ann  Veronica  readjusted  her  chin  on  her  hand.  "  I 
wonder  which  of  us  is  right,"  she  said.  "I  haven't  a 
scrap — of  this  sort  of  aversion." 

"Tolstoy  is  so  good  about  this,"  said  Miss  Miniver, 
regardless  of  her  friend's  attitude.  "He  sees  through 
it  all.  The  Higher  Life  and  the  Lower.  He  sees  men 
all  defiled  by  coarse  thoughts,  coarse  ways  of  living, 

186 


BIOLOGY 

cruelties.  Simply  because  they  are  hardened  by — by 
bestiality,  and  poisoned  by  the  juices  of  meat  slain  in 
anger  and  fermented  drinks — fancy!  drinks  that  have 
been  swarmed  in  by  thousands  and  thousands  of  horri- 
ble little  bacteria!" 

"It's  yeast,"  said  Ann  Veronica — "a  vegetable." 

vlt's  all  the  same/'  said  Miss  Miniver.  "And  then 
they  are  swollen  up  and  inflamed  and  drunken  with 
matter.  They  are  blinded  to  all  fine  and  subtle  things; 
they  look  at  life  with  bloodshot  eyes  and  dilated  nos- 
trils. (They  are  arbitrary  and  unjust  and  dogmatic  and 
brutish  and  lustful."") 

"  But  do  you  really  think  men's  minds  are  altered  by 
the  food  they  eat?" 

"I  know  it,"  said  Miss  Miniver.  "Experte  credo. 
When  I  am  leading  a  true  life,  a  pure  and  simple  life, 
(free  of  all  stimulants  and  excitements,^ I  think — I  think 
— oh !  with  pellucid  clearness ;  but  if  I  so  much  as  take  a 
mouthful  of  meat — or  anything — the  ^nirror_^is  all 
blurred." 

§  6 

Then,  arising  she  knew  not  how,  like  a  new-born  ap- 
petite, came  a  craving  in  Ann  Veronica  for  the  sight 
and  sound  of  beauty. 

It  was  as  if  her  aesthetic  sense  had  become  inflamed. 
Her  mind  turned  and  accused  itself  of  having  been  cold 
and  hard.  She  began  to  look  for  beauty  and  discover 
it  in  unexpected  aspects  and  places.  Hitherto  she  had 
seen  it  chiefly  in  pictures  and  other  works  of  art,  inci- 
dentally, and  as  a  thing  taken  out  of  life'.  Now  the 
'3  187 


ANN    VERONICA 

sense  of  beauty  was  spreading  to  a  multitude  of  hitherto 
unsuspected  aspects  of  the  world  about  her. 

The  thought  of  beauty  became  an  obsession.  It 
interwove  with  her  biological  work.  She  found  herself 
asking  more  and  more  curiously,  "  Why,  on  the  princi- 
ple of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  have  I  any  sense  of 
beauty  at  all?"  That  enabled  her  to  go  on  thinking 
about  beauty  when  it  seemed  to  her  right  that  she  should 
be  thinking  about  biology. 

She  was  very  greatly  exercised  by  the  two  systems 
of  values — the  two  series  of  explanations  that  her  com- 
parative anatomy  on  the  one  hand  and  her  sense  of 
beauty  on  the  other,  set  going  in  her  thoughts.  She 
could  not  make  up  her  mind  which  was  the  finer,  more 
elemental  thing,  which  gave  its  values  to  the  other. 
Was  it  that  the  struggle  of  things  to  survive  produced 
as  a  sort  of  necessary  by-product  these  intense  prefer- 
ences and  appreciations,  or  was  it  that  some  mystical 
outer  thing,  some  great  force,  drove  life  beautyward, 
even  in  spite  of  expediency,  regardless  of  survival  value 
and  all  the  manifest  discretions  of  life?  She  went  to 
Capes  with  that  riddle  and  put  it  to  him  very  carefully 
and  clearly,  and  he  talked  well — he  always  talked  at 
some  length  when  she  took  a  difficulty  to  him — and  sent 
her  to  a  various  literature  upon  the  markings  of  butter- 
flies, the  incomprehensible  elaboration  and  splendor  of 
birds  of  Paradise  and  humming-birds'  plumes,  the  pat- 
terning of  tigers,  and  a  leopard's  spots.  He  was  inter- 
esting and  inconclusive,  and  the  original  papers  to 
which  he  referred  her  discursive  were  at  best  only  sug- 
gestive. Afterward,  one  afternoon,  he  hovered  about 
her,  and  came  and  sat  beside  her  and  talked  of  beauty 

188 


BIOLOGY 

and  the  riddle  of  beauty  for  some  time.  He  displayed 
a  quite 'unprofessional  vein  of  mysticism  in  the  matter. 
He  contrasted  with  Russell,  whose  intellectual  meth- 
ods were,  so  to  speak,  sceptically  dogmatic.  Their 
talk  drifted  to  the  beauty  of  music,  and  they  took  that 
up  again  at  tea-time. 

But  as  the  students  sat  about  Miss  Garvice's  tea- 
pot and  drank  tea  or  smoked  cigarettes,  the  talk  got 
away  from  Capes.  The  Scotchman  informed  Ann  Ve- 
ronica that  your  view  of  beauty  necessarily  depended 
on  your  metaphysical  premises,  and  the  young  man 
with  the  Russell-like  hair  became  anxious  to  distinguish 
himself  by  telling  the  Japanese  student  that  Western 
art  was  symmetrical  and  Eastern  art  asymmetrical,  and 
that  among  the  higher  organisms  the  tendency  was 
toward  an  external  symmetry  veiling  an  internal  want 
of  balance.-*,  Ann  Veronica  decided  she  would  have  to 
go  on  with  Capes  another  day,  and,  looking  up,  discov- 
ered him  sitting  on  a  stool  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
and  his  head  a  little  on  one  side,  regarding  her  with  a 
thoughtful  expression.  She  met  his  eye  for  a  moment 
in  curious  surprise. 

He  turned  his  eyes  and  stared  at  Miss  Garvice  like 
one  who  wakes  from  a  reverie,  and  then  got  up  and 
strolled  down  the  laboratory  toward  his  refuge,  the  prep- 
aration-room. 


§  7 


Then  one  day  a  little  thing  happened  that  clothed 
itself  in  significance. 

She  had  been  working  upon  a  ribbon  of  microtome 


ANN   VERONICA 

sections  of  the  developing  salamander,  and  he  came  to 
see  what  she  had  made  of  them.  She  stood  up  and  he 
sat  down  at  the  microscope,  and  for  a  time  he  was  busy 
scrutinizing  one  section  after  another.  She  looked 
down  at  him  and  saw  that  the  sunlight  was  gleaming 
from  his  cheeks,  and  that  all  over  his  cheeks  was  a 
fine  golden  down  of  delicate  hairs.  And  at  the  sight 
something  leaped  within  her.  Something  changed  for 
her. 

She  became  aware  of  his  presence  as  she  had  never 
been  aware  of  any  human  being  in  her  life  before.  She 
became  aware  of  the  modelling  of  his  ear,  of  the  muscles 
of  his  neck  and  the  textures  of  the  hair  that  came  off 
his  brow,  the  soft  minute  curve  of  eyelid  that  she  could 
just  see  beyond  his  brow;  she  perceived  all  these  familiar 
objects  as  though  they  were  acutely,  "beautiful  things. 
They  were,  she  realized,  acutely  "beautiluT^thirigs: — fifer 
sense  followed  the  shoulders  under  his  coat,  down  to 
where  his  flexible,  sensitive-looking  hand  rested  lightly 
upon  the  table.  She  felt  him  as  something  solid  and 
strong  and  trustworthy  beyond  measure.  The  percep- 
tion of  him  flooded  lie?  being. 

He  got  up.  "Here's  something  rather  good,"  he 
said,  and  with  a  start  and  an  effort  she  took  his  place  at 
the  microscope,  while  he  stood  beside  her  and  almost 
leaning  over  her. 

She  found  she  was  trembling  at  his  nearness  and  full 
of  a  thrilling  dread  that  he  might  touch  her.  She  pulled 
herself  together  and  put  her  eye  to  the  eye-piece. 

"You  see  the  pointer?"  he  asked. 

"I  see  the  pointer,"  she  said. 

"  It's  like  this,"  he  said,  and  dragged  a  stool  beside  her 
190 


BIOLOGY 

and  sat  down  with  his  elbow  four  inches  from  hers  and 
made  a  sketch.     Then  he  got  up  and  left  her. 

She  had  a  feeling  at  his  departure  as  of  an  immense 
1  cavity,  of  something  enormously  gone;  she  could  not  tell 
jwhetner  it  was  infinite  regret  or  infinite  relief.  .  .  . 

But  now  Ann  Veronica  knew  what  was  the  matter 
with  her. 

§  8 

And  as  she  sat  on  her  bed  that  night,  musing  and  half- 
undressed,  she  began  to  run  one  hand  down  her  arm  and 
scrutinize  the  soft  flow  of  muscle  under  her  skin.  She 
thought  of  the  marvellous  beauty  of  skin,  and  all  the 
delightfulness  of  living  texture.  On  the  back  of  her 
arm  she  found  the  faintest  down  of  hair  in  the  world. 
"  Etherialized  monkey,"  she  said.  She  held  out  her  arm 
straight  before  her,  and  turned  her  hand  this  way  and 
that. 

"Why  should  one  pretend?"  she  whispered.  "Why 
should  one  pretend?— — ^ 

"Think  of  all  thebeautyin  the  world  that  is  covered 
up  and  overlaid." 

She  glanced  shyly  at  the  mirror  above  her  dressing- 
table,  and  then  about  her  at  the  furniture,  as  though  it 
might  penetrate  to  the  thoughts  that  peeped  in  her  mind. 

"I  wonder,"  said  Ann  Veronica  at  last,  "if  I  am  beau- 
tiful? I  wonder  if  I  shall  ever  shine  like  a  light,  like  a 
translucent  gpddess? — • 

"I  wonder — 

"I  suppose  girls  and  women  have  prayed  for  this, 
have  come  to  this —  In  Babylon,  in  Nineveh. 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Why  shouldn't  one  face  the  facts  of  one's 
She  stood  up.     She  posed  herself  before  heir  mirror) 
and  surveyed  herself  with  gravely  thoughtful,  gravely 
critical,  and  yet  admiring  eyes.     "And,  after  all,  I  am 
just  one  common  person!" 

She  watched  the  throb  of  the  arteries  in  the  stem  of  her 
neck,  and  put  her  hand  at  last  gently  and  almost  timidly 
to  where  her  heart  beat  beneath  her  breast. 


§0 

The  realization  that  she  was  in  love  flooded  Ann 
Veronica's  mind,  and  altered  the  quality  of  all  its  topics. 

She  began  to  think  persistently  of  Capes,  and  it  seemed 
to  her  now  that  for  some  weeks  at  least  she  must  have 
been  thinking  persistently  of  him  unawares.  She  was 
surprised  to  find  how  stored  her  mind  was  with  impres- 
sions and  memories  of  him,  how  vividly  she  remembered 
his  gestures  and  little  things  that  he  had  said.  It 
occurred  to  her  that  it  was  absurd  and  wrong  to  be  so 
continuously  thinking  of  one  engrossing  topic,  and  she 
made  a  strenuous  effort  to  force  her  mind  to  other  ques- 
tions. 

But  it  was  extraordinary  what  seemingly  irrelevant 
things  could  restore  her  to  the  thought  of  Capes  again. 
And  when  she  went  to  sleep,  then  always  Capes  became 
the  novel  and  wonderful  guest  of  her  dreams. 

For  a  time  it  really  seemed  all-sufficient  to  her  that  she 
should  love.  That  Capes  should  love  her  seemed  be- 
yond the  compass  of  her  imagination.  Indeed,  she  did 
not  want  to  think  of  him  as  loving  her.  She  wanted 

192 


BIOLOGY 

to  think  of  him  as  her  beloved  person,  to  be  near  him 
and  watch  him,  to  have  him  going  about,  doing  this  and 
that,  saying  this  and  that,  unconscious  of  her,  while  she 
too  remained  unconscious  of  herself.  To  think  of  him 
as  loving  her  would  make  all  that  different.  Then  he 
would  turn  his  face  to  her,  andUhe  would  have  to  think 
of  herself  in  his  eyes]  She  would  become  defensive — • 
what  she  did  would  be  the  thing  that  mattered.  He 
would  require  things  of  her,  and  she  would  be  passionate- 
ly concerned  to  meet  his  requirements.  Loving  was 
;  better  than  that.  ^Loving  was  sel^orgetfulness,  pure 
delighting  in  another  human  being?;  She  felt  that  with 
Capes  near  to  her  she  would  be  content  always  to  go  on 
loving. 

r  She  went  next  day  to  the  schools,  and  her  world  seem- 
ed all  made  of  happiness  just  worked  up  roughly  into 
shapes  and  occasions  and  duties.  She  found  she  could 
[  do  her  microscope  work  all  the  better  for  being  in  love. 
She  winced  when  first  she  heard  the  preparation-room 
door  open  and  Capes  came  down  the  laboratory;  but 
when  at  last  he  reached  her  she  was  self-possessed.  She 
put  a  stool  for  him  at  a  little  distance  from  her  own,  and 
after  he  had  seen  the  day's  work  he  hesitated,  and  then 
plunged  into  a  resumption  of  their  discussion  about  beauty. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "I  was  a  little  too  mystical  about 
beauty  the  other  day." 

"I  like  the  mystical  way,"  she  said. 

"Our  business  here  is  the  right  way.  I've  been 
thinking,  you  know — •  I'm  not  sure  that  primarily  the 
perception  of  beauty  isn't  just  intensity  of  feeling  free 
from  pain;  intensity  of  perception  without  any  tissue 
destruction." 

193 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I  like  the  mystical  way  better,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
and  thought.  "A  number  of  beautiful  things  are  not 
intense." 

"But  delicacy,  for  example,  may  be  intensely  per- 
ceived." 

"But  why  is  one  face  beautiful  and  another  not?" 
objected  Ann  Veronica;  "on  your  theory  any  two  faces 
side  by  side  in  the  sunlight  ought  to  be  equally  beau- 
tiful. One  must  get  them  with  exactly  the  same  inten- 
sity." 

He  did  not  agree  with  that.  "  I  don't  mean  simply  in- 
tensity of  sensation.  I  said  intensity  of  perception. 
You  may  perceive  harmony,  proportion,  rhythm,  in- 
tensely. They  are  things  faint  and  slight  in  themselves, 
as  physical  facts,  but  (they  are  like  the  detonator  of  a 
bomb:  they  let  loose  the  explosivY  There's  the  internal 
factor  as  well  as  the  external.  ...  1  don't  know  if  I  express 
myself  clearly.  I  mean  that  the  point  is  that  vividness 
of  perceptipn  is^he  essential  factor  of  beauty;  but,  of 
course,  vividness  may  be  created  by  a  whisper." 

"That  brings  us  back,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "to  the 
mystery.  Why  should  some  things  and  not  others  open 
the  deeps?" 

"  Well,  that  might,  after  all,  be  an  outcome  of  selection 
— like  the  preference  for  blue  flowers,  which  are  not 
nearly  so  bright  as  yellow,  of  some  insects." 

"That  doesn't  explain  sunsets." 

"Not  quite  so  easily  as  it  explains  an  insect  alighting 
I  on  colored  paper.  But  perhaps  if  people  didn't  like  clear, 
bright,  healthy  eyes — which  is  biologically  understand- 
able— they  couldn't  like  precious  stones.  One  thing 
,  may  be  a  necessary  collateral  of  the  others.  And,  after 

194 


BIOLOGY 

all,  a  fine  clear  sky  of  bright  colors  is  the  signal  to  come 
out  of  hiding  and  rejoice  and  go  on  with  life." 

"H'm!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  shook  her  head. 

Capes  smiled  cheerfully  with  his  eyes  meeting  hers. 
" I  throw  it  out  in  passing,"  he  said.  "What  I  am  after 
is  that  beauty  isn't  a  special  inserted  sort  of  thing ;  that's 
my  idea.  It's  just  life,  pure/life}  lifenasceixt,  running 
clear  and  strong." 

He  stood  up  to  go  on  to  the  next  student. 
(  "There's  morbid  beauty,"  said  Ann  Veronica.) 

"I  wonder  if  there  is!"  said  Capes,  and  paused,  and 
then  bent  down  over  the  boy  who  wore  his  hair  like 
Russell. 

Ann  Veronica  surveyed  his  sloping  back  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  drew  her  microscope  toward  her.  Then 
for  a  time  she  sat  very  still.  She  felt  that  she  had  passed 
a  difficult  corner,  and  that  now  she  could  go  on  talking 
with  him  again,  just  as  she  had  been  used  to  do  before 
she  understood  what  was  the  matter  with  her.  .  .  . 

She  had  one  idea,  she  found,  very  clear  in  her  mind — 
that  she  would  get  a  Research  Scholarship,  and  so  con- 
trive another  year  in  the  laboratory. 

"Now  I  see  what  everything  means,"  said  Ann  Ve- 
ronica to  herself;  and  it  really  felt  for  some  days  as 
though  the  secret  of  the  universe,  that  had  been  wrapped 
and  hidden  from  her  so  obstinately,  was  at  last  alto- 
gether displayed. 


CHAPTER   THE   NINTH 

DISCORDS 
§    I 

ONE  afternoon,  soon  after  Ann  Veronica's  great  dis- 
covery, a  telegram  came  into  the  laboratory  for 
her.     It  ran: 


Bored 

and 

nothing 

to 

do 

will 

you 

dine 

with 

me 

to-night 

somewhere 

and 

talk 

I 

shall 

be 

grateful 

Ramage 

Ann  Veronica  was  rather  pleased  by  this.  She  had 
not  seen  Ramage  for  ten  or  eleven  days,  and  she  was 
quite  ready  for  a  gossip  with  him.  And  now  her  mind 
was  so  full  of  the  thought  that  she  was  in  love — in 
love! — that  marvellous  state!  that  I  really  believe  she 
had  some  dim  idea  of  talking  to  him  about  it.  At  any 
rate,  it  would  be  good  to  hear  him  saying  the  sort  of 
things  he  did — perhaps  now  she  would  grasp  them 
better — with  this  world-shaking  secret  brandishing  it- 
self about  inside  her  head  within  a  yard  of  him. 

196 


DISCORDS 

She  was  sorry  to  find  Ramage  a  little  disposed  to  be 
melancholy. 

"  I  have  made  over  seven  hundred  pounds  in  the  last 
week,"  he  said. 

"That's  exhilarating,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  he  said;  "it's  only  a  score  in  a 
game." 

"It's  a  score  you  can  buy  all  sorts  of  things  with." 

"Nothing  that  one  wants." 

He  turned  to  the  waiter,  who  held  a  wine -card. 
"Nothing  can  cheer  me,"  he  said,  "except  champagne." 
He  meditated.  "This,"  he  said,  and  then:  "No!  Is 
this  sweeter?  Very  well." 

"Everything  goes  well  with  me,"  he  said,  folding  his 
arms  under  him  and  regarding  Ann  Veronica  with  the 
slightly  projecting  eyes  wide  open.  "And  I'm  not 
happy.  I  believe  I'm  in  love." 

He  leaned  back  for  his  soup. 

Presently  he  resumed:  "I  believe  I  must  be  in  love." 
ou  can't  be  that,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  wiselyp 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"Well,  it  isn't  exactly  a  depressing  state,  is  it?" 

11  You  don't  know." 

"One  has  theories,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  radiantly. 

"Oh,  theories!     Being  in  love  is  a  fact." 

"It  ought  to  make  one  happy." 

"It's  an  unrest— a  longing—  What's  that?"  The 
waiter  had  intervened.  "Parmesan — take  it  away!" 

He  glanced  at  Ann  Veronica's  face,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  that  she  really  was  exceptionally  radiant.  He 
wondered  why  she  thought  love  made  people  happy, 
and  began  to  talk  of  the  smilax  and  pinks  that  adorned 

197 


ANN   VERONICA 

the  table.     He  filled  her  glass  with  champagne.     "You 
must,''  he  said,  "  because  of  my  depression." 

They  were  eating  quails  when  they  returned  to  the 
topic  of  love.  "What  made  you  think,"  he  said, 
abruptly,  with  the  gleam  of  avidity  in  his  face,  "that 
love  makes  people  happy?" 

"I  know  it  must." 

"But  how?"  ^ 

He  was,  she  thought,  a  little  ,£00  insistent,  r  Women 
know  these  things  by  instinct,"  phe  answered. 

"I  wonder,"  he  said,  "if  women  do  know  things  by 
instinct?  I  have  my  doubts  about  feminine  instinct. 
It's  one  of  our  conventional  superstitions.  A  woman 
is  supposed  to  know  when  a  man  is  in  love  with  her. 
Do  you  think  she  does?" 

Ann  Veronica  picked  among  her  salad  with  a  judicial 
expression  of  face.  "I  think  she  would,"  she  decided. 

"Ah!"  said  Ramage,  impressively. 

Ann  Veronica  looked  up  at  him  and  found  him  re- 
garding her  with  eyes  that  were  almost  woebegone, 
and  into  which,  indeed,  he  was  trying  to  throw  much 
more  expression  than  they  could  carry.  There  was  a 
little  pause  between  them,  full  for  Ann  Veronica  of  rapid 
elusive  suspicions  and  intimations. 

(^"Perhaps  one  talks  nonsense  about  a  woman's  in-_ 
stinct,"  she  said.     "It's  a  way  of  avoiding  explanations.    • 
And  girls  and  women,  perhaps,  are  different.     I  don't 
know.     I  don't  suppose  a  girl  can  tell  if  a  man  is  in  love 
with  her  or  not  in  love  with  her."     Her  mind  went  off 
to  Capes.     Her  thoughts  took  words  for  themselves. 
"She  can't.     I  suppose  it  depends  on  her  own  state  of 
mind.     If  one  wants  a  thing  very  much,  perhaps  one 

198 


DISCORDS 

is  inclined  to  think  one  can't  have  it.  I  suppose  if  one 
were  to  love  some  one,  one  would  feel  doubtful,  find 
if  one  were  to  love  some  one  very  much,  it's  just  so  that 
one  would  be  blindest,  just  when  one  wanted  most  to 
see.") 

She  stopped  abruptly,  afraid  that  Ramage  might 
be  able  to  infer  Capes  from  the  things  she  had  said, 
and  indeed  his  face  was  very  eager. 

"Yes?"  he  said. 

Ann  Veronica  blushed.  "That's  all,"  she  said. 
"I'm  afraid  I'm  a  little  confused  about  these  things." 

Ramage  looked  at  her,  and  then  fell  into  deep  re- 
flection as  the  waiter  came  to  paragraph  their  talk 
again. 

"Have  you  ever  been  to  the  opera,  Ann  Veronica?" 
said  Ramage. 

"Once  or  twice." 

"Shall  we  go  now?" 

"I  think  I  would  like  to  listen  to  music.  What  is 
there?" 

"Trtetcm" 

"I've  never  heard  Tristan  and  Isolde." 

"That  settles  it.  We'll  go.  There's  sure  to  be  a  place 
somewhere." 

"It's  rather  jolly  of  you,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"It's  jolly  of  you  to  come,"  said  Ramage. 

So  presently  they  got  into  a  hansom  together,  and 
Ann  Veronica  sat  back  feeling  very  luxurious  and 
pleasant,  and  looked  at  the  light  and  stir  and  misty 
glitter  of  the  street  traffic  from  under  slightly  drooping 
eyelids,  while  Ramage  sat  closer  to  her  than  he  need 
have  done,  and  glanced  ever  and  again  at  her  face, 

199 


ANN   VERONICA 

and  made  to  speak  and  said  nothing.  And  when  they 
got  to  Covent  Garden  Ramage  secured  one  of  the  little 
upper  boxes,  and  they  came  into  it  as  the  overture 
began. 

Ann  Veronica  took  off  her  jacket  and  sat  down  in 
the  corner  chair,  and  leaned  forward  to  look  into  the 
great  hazy  warm  brown  cavity  of  the  house,  and  Ramage 
placed  his  chair  to  sit  beside  her  and  near  her,  facing 
the  stage.  The  music  took  hold  of  her  slowly  as  her 
eyes  wandered  from  the  indistinct  still  ranks  of  the 
audience  to  the  little  busy  orchestra  with  its  quivering 
violins,  its  methodical  movements  of  brown  and  silver 
instruments,  its  brightly  lit  scores  and  shaded  lights. 
She  had  never  been  to  the  opera  before  except  as  one 
of  a  congested  mass  of  people  in  the  cheaper  seats,  and 
with  backs  and  heads  and  women's  hats  for  the  frame 
of  the  spectacle ;  there  was  by  contrast  a  fine  large  sense 
of  space  and  ease  in  her  present  position.  The  curtain 
rose  out  of  the  concluding  bars  of  the  overture  and 
revealed  Isolde  on  the  prow  of  the  barbaric  ship.  The 
voice  of  the  young  seaman  came  floating  down  from 
the  masthead,  and  the  story  of  the  immortal  lovers 
had  begun.  She  knew  the  story  only  imperfectly,  and 
followed  it  now  with  a  passionate  and  deepening  interest. 
The  splendid  voices  sang  on  from  phase  to  phase  of 
love's  unfolding,  the  ship  drove  across  the  sea  to  the 
beating  rhythm  of  the  rowers.  The  lovers  broke  into 
passionate  knowledge  of  themselves  and  each  other,  and 
then,  a  jarring  intervention,  came  King  Mark  amidst  the 
shouts  of  the  sailormen,  and  stood  beside  them. 

The  curtain  came  festooning  slowly  down,  the  music 
ceased,  the  lights  in  the  auditorium  glowed  out,  and 

200 


DISCORDS 

Ann  Veronica  woke  out  of  her  confused  dream  of  in-_ 
voluntary  and  commanding  love  in  a  glory  of  sound 
and  colors  to  discover  that  Ramage  was  sitting  close 
beside  her  with  one  hand  resting  lightly  on  her  waist. 
She  made  a  quick  movement,  and  the  hand  fell  away. 

"By  God!  Ann  Veronica,"  he  said,  sighing  deeply. 
"This  stirs  one." 

She  sat  quite  still  looking  at  him. 

"I  wish  you  and  I  had  drunk  that  love  potion," 
he  said. 

She  found  no  ready  reply  to  that,  and  he  went  on: 
"This  music  is  the  food  of  love.  It  makes  me  desire 
life  beyond  measure.  Life!  Life  and  love!  It  makes 
me  want  to  be  always  young,  always  strong,  always 
devoting  my  life — and  dying  splendidly." 

"It  is  very  beautiful,"  said  Ann  Veronica  in  a  low 
tone. 

They  said  no  more  for  a  moment,  and  each  was  now 
acutely  aware  of  the  other.  Ann  Veronica  was  excited 
and  puzzled,  with  a  sense  of  a  strange  and  disconcerting 
new  light  breaking  over  her  relations  with  Ramage. 
She  had  never  thought  of  him  at  all  in  that  way  before. 
It  did  not  shock  her;  it  amazed  her,  interested  her 
beyond  measure.  But  also  this  must  not  go  on.  She 
felt  he  was  going  to  say  something  more — something 
still  more  personal  and  intimate.  She  was  curious,  and 
at  the  same  time  clearly  resolved  she  must  not  hear  it. 
She  felt  she  must  get  him  talking  upon  some  impersonal 
theme  at  any  cost.  She  snatched  about  in  her  mind. 
"What  is  the  exact  force  of  a  motif?"  she  asked  at  ran- 
dom. "Before  I  heard  much  Wagnerian  music  I  heard 
enthusiastic  descriptions  of  it  from  a  mistress  I  didn't 

201 


ANN    VERONICA 

like  at  school.  She  gave  me  an  impression  of  a  sort  of 
patched  quilt;  little  bits  of  patterned  stuff  coming  up 
again  and  again." 

She  stopped  with  an  air  of  interrogation. 

Ramage  looked  at  her  for  a  long  and  discriminating 
interval  without  speaking.  He  seemed  to  be  hesitating 
between  two  courses  of  action.  "I  don't  know  much 
about  the  technique  of  music,"  he  said  at  last,  with  his 
eyes  upon  her.  "It's  a  matter  of  feeling  with  me." 

He  contradicted  himself  by  plunging  into  an  ex- 
position of  motifs.  By  a  tacit  agreement  they  ignored 
the  significant  thing  between  them,  ignored  the  slipping 
away  of  the  ground  on  which  they  had  stood  together 
hitherto.  .  .  . 

All  through  the  love  music  of  the  second  act,  until 
the  hunting  horns  of  Mark  break  in  upon  the  dream, 
Ann  Veronica's  consciousness  was  flooded  with  the 
perception  of  a  man  close  beside  her,  preparing  some 
new  thing  to  say  to  her,  preparing,  perhaps,  to  touch 
her,  stretching  hungry  invisible  tentacles  about  her. 
She  tried  to  think  what  she  should  do  in  this  eventuality 
or  that.  Her  mind  had  been  and  was  full  of  the  thought 
of  Capes,  a  huge  generalized  Capes-lover.  And  in  some 
incomprehensible  way,  Ramage  was  confused  with 
Capes;  \sjie  had  a  grotesque  disposition  to  persuade 
herself  that  this  was  really  Capes  who  surrounded  her, 
as  it  were,  with  wings  of  desire?)  The  fact  that  it  was 
her  trusted  friend  making  illicit  love  to  her  remained, 
in  spite  of  all  her  effort,  an  insignificant  thing  in  her 
mind.  The  music  confused  and  distracted  her,  and 
made  her  struggle  against  a  feeling  of  intoxication. 
Her  head  swam.  That  was  the  inconvenience  of  it; 

202 


DISCORDS 

her  head  was  swimming.  The  music  throbbed  into  the 
warnings  that  preceded  the  king's  irruption. 

Abruptly  he  gripped  her  wrist.  "I  love  you,  Ann 
Veronica.  I  love  you — with  all  my  heart  and  soul." 

She  put  her  face  closer  to  his.  She  felt  the  warm 
nearness  of  his.  "Don't!"  she  said,  and  wrenched 
her  wrist  from  his  retaining  hand. 

"My  God!  Ann  Veronica,"  he  said,  struggling  to  keep 
his  hold  upon  her;  "my  God!  Tell  me — tell  me  now — 
tell  me  you  love  me!" 

His  expression  was  as  it  were  rapaciously  furtive. 
She  answered  in  whispers,  for  there  was  the  white 
arm  of  a  woman  in  the  next  box  peeping  beyond  the 
partition  within  a  yard  of  him. 

"My  hand!     This  isn't  the  place." 

He  released  her  hand  and  talked  in  eager  undertones 
against  an  auditory  background  of  urgency  and  distress. 

"Ann  Veronica,"  he  said,  "I  tell  you  this  is  love.  I 
love  the  soles  of  your  feet.  I  love  your  very  breath. 
I  have  tried  not  to  tell  you — tried  to  be  simply  your 
friend.  It  is  no  good.  I  want  you.  I  worship  you.  I 
would  do  anything — I  would  give  anything  to  make  you 
mine.  ...  Do  you  hear  me?  Do  you  hear  what  I  am 
saying?  .  .  .  Love!" 

He  held  her  arm  and  abandoned  it  again  at  her  quick 
defensive  movement.  For  a  long  time  neither  spoke 
again. 

She  sat  drawn  together  in  her  chair  in  the  corner  of 
the  box,  at  a  loss  what  to  say  or  do — afraid,  curious,  per- 
plexed. It  seemed  to  her  that  it  was  her  duty  to  get  up 
and  clamor  to  go  home  to  her  room,  to  protest  against 
his  advances  as  an  insult.  But  she  did  not  in  the  least 
14  203 


ANN    VERONICA 

want  to  do  that.  These  sweeping  dignities  were  not 
within  the  compass  of  her  will ;  she  remembered  she  liked 
Ramage,  and  owed  things  to  him,  and  she  was  interested 
— she  was  profoundly  interested.  He  was  in  love  with 
her!  She  tried  to  grasp  all  the  waiter  of  values  Jn  the 
situation  simultaneously,  and  draw  some  conclusion  from 
their  disorder. 

He  began  to  talk  again  in  quick  undertones  that  she 
could  not  clearly  hear. 

"I  have  loved  you,"  he  was  saying,  "ever  since  you 
sat  on  that  gate  and  talked.  I  have  always  loved  you. 
I  don't  care  what  divides  us.  I  don't  care  what  else 
there  is  in  the  world.  I  want  you  beyond  measure  or 
reckoning.  ..." 

His  voice  rose  and  fell  amidst  the  music  and  the 
singing  of  Tristan  and  King  Mark,  like  a  voice  heard  in  a 
badly  connected  telephone,  She  stared  at  his  pleading 
face. 

She  turned  to  the  stage,  and  Tristan  was  wounded 
in  Kurvenal's  arms,  with  Isolde  at  his  feet,  and  King 
Mark,  the  incarnation  of  masculine  force  and  obligation, 
the  masculine  creditor  of  love  and  beauty,  stood  over 
him,  and  the  seconcf  climax  was  ending  in  wreaths  and 
reek  of  melodies ;  and  then  the  curtain  was  coming  down 
in  a  series  of  short  rushes,  the  music  had  ended,  and  the 
people  were  stirring  and  breaking  out  into  applause,  and 
the  lights  of  the  auditorium  were  resuming.  The 
ligh ting-up  pierced  the  obscurity  of  the  box,  and  Ramage 
stopped  his  urgent  flow  of  words  abruptly  and  sat  back. 
This  helped  to  restore  Ann  Veronica's  self-command. 

She  turned  her  eyes  to  him  again,  and  saw  her  late 
friend  and  pleasant  and  trusted  companion,  who  had  seen 

204 


DISCORDS 

fit  suddenly  to  change  into  a  lover,  babbling  interesting 
inacceptable  things.  He  looked  eager  and  flushed  and 
troubled.  His  eyes  caught  at  hers  with  passionate  in- 
quiries. "Tell  me,"  he  said;  "speak  to  me."  She 
realized  it  was  possible  to  be  sorry  for  him — acutely  sorry 
for  the  situation.  Of  course  this  thing  was  absolutely 
impossible.  But  she  was  disturbed,  mysteriously  dis- 
turbed. She  remembered  abruptly  that  she  was  really 
living  upon  his  money.  She  leaned  forward  and  ad- 
dressed him. 

"Mr.  Ramage,"  she  said,  "please  don't  talk  like  this." 

He  made  to  speak  and  did  not. 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  do  it,  to  go  on  talking  to  me.  I 
don't  want  to  hear  you.  If  I  had  known  that  you  had 
meant  to  talk  like  this  I  wouldn't  have  come  here." 

"  But  how  can  I  help  it  ?     How  can  I  keep  silence  ?" 

"Please!"  she  insisted.     "Please  not  now." 

"  I  must  talk  with  you.    I  must  say  what  I  have  to  say !" 

"But  not  now — not  here." 

"It  came,"  he  said.  "I  never  planned  it —  And 
now  I  have  begun — " 

She  felt  acutely  that  he  was  entitled  to  explanations, 
and  as  acutely  that  explanations  were  impossible  that 
night.  She  wanted  to  think. 

"  Mr.  Ramage,"  she  said,  "  I  can't —  Not  now.  Will 
you  please —  Not  now,  or  I  must  go." 

He  stared  at  her,  trying  to  guess  at  the  mystery  of  her 
thoughts. 

"You  don't  want  to  go?" 

"  No.     But  I  must— I  ought—" 

"  I  must  talk  about  this.     Indeed  I  must." 

"Not  now." 

205 


ANN    VERONICA 

"But  I  love  you.     I  love  you — unendurably." 

"Then  don't  talk  to  me  now.  I  don't  want  you  to 
talk  to  me  now.  There  is  a  place —  This  isn't  the 
place.  You  have  misunderstood.  I  can't  explain — " 

They  regarded  one  another,  each  blinded  to  the 
other.  "  Forgive  me,"  he  decided  to  say  at  last,  and  his 
voice  had  a  little  quiver  of  emotion,  and  he  laid  his 
hand  on  hers  upon  her  knee.  "  I  am  the  most  foolish 
of  men.  I  was  stupid — stupid  and  impulsive  beyond 
measure  to  burst  upon  you  in  this  way.  I — I  am  a  love- 
sick idiot,  and  not  accountable  for  my  actions.  Will 
you  forgive  me — if  I  say  no  more?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  perplexed,  earnest  eyes. 

"Pretend,"  he  said,  "that  all  I  have  said  hasn't  been 
said.  And  let  us  go  on  with  our  evening.  Why  not? 
Imagine  I've  had  a  fit  of  hysteria — and  that  I've  come 
round."  r^w^(^*^ 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  and  abruptly  she  liked  him  enormous- 
ly. She  felt  this  was  the  sensible  way  out  of  this  oddly 
sinister  situation. 

He  still  watched  her  and  questioned  her. 

"  And  let  us  have  a  talk  about  this — some  other  time. 
Somewhere,  where  we  can  talk  without  interruption. 
Will  you?" 

She  thought,  and  it  seemed  to  him  she  had  never 
looked  so  self -disciplined  and  deliberate  and  beautiful. 
"Yes,"  she  said,  "that  is  what  we  ought  to  do."  But 
now  she  doubted  again  of  the  quality  of  the  armistice 
they  had  just  made. 

He  had  a  wild  impulse  to  shout.  "Agreed,"  he  said 
with  queer  exaltation,  and  his  grip  tightened  on  her 
hand.  "And  to-night  we  are  friends?" 

206 


DISCORDS 

"We  are  friends,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  drew  her 
hand  quickly  away  from  him. 

"To-night  we  are  as  we  have  always  been.  Except 
that  this  music  we  have  been  swimming  in  is  divine. 
While  I  have  been  pestering  you,  have  you  heard  it? 
At  least,  you  heard  the  first  act.  And  all  the  third  act 
is  love-sick  music.  Tristan  dying  and  Isolde  coming 
to  crown  his  death.  Wagner  had  just  been  in  love  when 
he  wrote  it  all.  It  begins  with  that  queer  piccolo  solo. 
Now  I  shall  never  hear  it  but  what  this  evening  will  come 
pouring  back  over  me." 

The  lights  sank,  the  prelude  to  the  third  act  was  be- 
ginning, the  music  rose  and  fell  in  crowded  intimations 
of  lovers  separated — lovers  separated  with  scars  and 
memories  between  them,  and  the  curtain  went  reefing 
up  to  display  Tristan  lying  wounded  on  his  couch  and 
the  shepherd  crouching  with  his  pipe. 


§    2 

They  had  their  explanations  the  next  evening,  but 
they  were  explanations  in  quite  other  terms  than  Ann 
Veronica  had  anticipated,  quite  other  and  much  more 
startling  and  illuminating  terms.  Ramage  came  for  her 
at  her  lodgings,  and  she  met  him  graciously  and  kindly 
Vas  a  queen  who  knows  she  must  needs  give  sorrow  to  a 
X ,  faithful  liege.  She  was  unusually  soft  and  gentle  in  her 
manner  to  him.  He  was  wearing  a  new  silk  hat,  with  a 
slightly  more  generous  brim  than  its  predecessor,  and  it 
suited  his  type  of  face,  robbed  his  dark  eyes  a  little  of 
their  aggressiveness  and  gave  him  a  solid  and  dignified 

207 


ANN   VERONICA 

and  benevolent  air.     A  faint  anticipation  of  triumph 
showed  in  his  manner  and  a  subdued  excitement. 

"We'll  go  to  a  place  where  we  can  have  a  private 
room,"  he  said.  "Then — then  we  can  talk  things  out." 

So  they  went  this  time  to  the  Rococo,  in  Germain 
Street,  and  up-stairs  to  a  landing  upon  which  stood  a 
bald-headed  waiter  with  whiskers  like  a  French  admiral 
and  discretion  beyond  all  limits  in  his  manner.  He 
seemed  to  have  expected  them.  He  ushered  them  with 
an  amiable  flat  hand  into  a  minute  apartment  with  a 
little  gas-stove,  a  silk  crimson-covered  sofa,  and  a  bright 
little  table,  gay  with  napery  and  hot-house  flowers. 

"Odd  little  room,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  dimly  ap- 
prehending that  obtrusive  sofa. 

"  One  can  talk  without  undertones,  so  to  speak,"  said 
Ramage.  "  It's — private."  He  stood  looking  at  the 
preparations  before  them  with  an  unusual  preoccupa- 
tion of  manner,  then  roused  himself  to  take  her  jacket, 
a  little  awkwardly,  and  hand  it  to  the  waiter  who  hung 
it  in  the  corner  of  the  room.  It  appeared  he  had  al- 
ready ordered  dinner  and  wine,  and  the  whiskered  waiter 
waved  in  his  subordinate  with  the  soup  forthwith. 

"  I'm  going  to  talk  of  indifferent  themes,"  said  Ram- 
age, a  little  fussily,  "until  these  interruptions  of  the 
service  are  over.  Then — then  we  shall  be  together.  .  .  . 
How  did  you  like  Tristan?" 

Ann  Veronica  paused  the  fraction  of  a  second  before 
her  reply  came. 

"  I  thought  much  of  it  amazingly  beautiful." 

"  Isn't  it.  And  to  think  that  man  got  it  all  out  of 
the  poorest  little  love-story  for  a  respectable  titled  lady! 
Have  you  read  of  it  ?" 

208 


DISCORDS 

"Never." 

"It  gives  in  a  nutshell  the  miracle  of  art  and  the 
imagination.  You  get  this  queer  irascible  musician 
quite  impossibly  and  unfortunately  in  love  with  a 
wealthy  patroness,  and  then  out  of  his  brain  comes 
this,  a  tapestry  of  glorious  music,  setting  out  love  to 
lovers,  lovers  who  love  in  spite  of  all  that  is  wise  and 
respectable  and  right." 

Ann  Veronica  thought.  She  did  not  want  to  seem 
to  shrink  from  conversation,  but  all  sorts  of  odd  ques- 
tions were  running  through  her  mind.  "  I  wonder  why 
people  in  love  are  so  defiant,  so  careless  of  other  con- 
siderations?" 

"The  very  hares  grow  brave.  I  suppose  because  it 
is  the  chief  thing  in  life."  He  stopped  and  said  earnest- 
ly: "It  is  the  chief  thing  in  life,  and  everything  else 
goes  down  before  it.  Everything,  my  dear,  every- 
thing! .  .  .  But  we  have  got  to  talk  upon  indifferent 
themes  ttntil  we  have  done  with  this  blond  young  gentle- 
man from  Bavaria.  ..." 

The  dinner  came  to  an  end  at  last,  and  the  whiskered 
waiter  presented  his  bill  and  evacuated  the  apartment 
and  closed  the  door  behind  him  with  an  almost  osten- 
tatious discretion.  Ramage  stood  up,  and  suddenly 
turned  the  key  in  the  door  in  an  off-hand  manner. 
"  Now,"  he  said,  "  no  one  can  blunder  in  upon  us.  We 
are  alone  and  we  can  say  and  do  what  we  please.  We 
two."  He  stood  still,  looking  at  her. 

Ann  Veronica  tried  to  seem  absolutely  unconcerned. 
The  turning  of  the  key  startled  her,  but  she  did  not 
see  how  she  could  make  an  objection.  She  felt  she  had 
stepped  into  a  world  of  unknown  usages. 

209 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I  have  waited  for  this,"  he  said,  and  stood  quite 
still,  looking  at  her  until  the  silence  became  oppressive. 

"Won't  you  sit  down,"  she  said,  "and  tell  me  what 
you  want  to  say?"  Her  voice  was  flat  and  faint. 
Suddenly  she  had  become  afraid.  She  struggled  not  to 
be  afraid.  After  all,  what  could  happen? 

He  was  looking  at  her  very  hard  and  earnestly. 
"Ann  Veronica,"  he  said. 

Then  before  she  could  say  a  word  to  arrest  him  he 
was  at  her  side.  "Don't!"  she  said,  weakly,  as  he  had 
bent  down  and  put  one  arm  about  her  and  seized  her 
hands  with  his  disengaged  hand  and  kissed  her — kissed 
her  almost  upon  her  lips.  He  seemed  to  do  ten  things 
before  she  could  think  to  do  one,  to  leap  upon  her  and 
take  possession. 

Ann  Veronica's  universe,  which  had  never  been  alto- 
gether so  respectful  to  her  as  she  could  have  wished, 
gave  a  shout  and  whirled  head  over  heels.  Everything 
in  the  world  had  changed  for  her.  If  hate  could  kill, 
Ramage  would  have  been  killed  by  a  flash  of  hate. 
"Mr.  Ramage!"  she  cried,  and  struggled  to  her  feet. 

"My  darling!"  he  said,  clasping  her  resolutely  in  his 
arms,  "my  dearest!" 

"Mr.  Ramage!"  she  began,  and  his  mouth  sealed  hers 
and  his  breath  was  mixed  with  her  breath.  Her  eye 
met  his  four  inches  away,  and  his  was  glaring,  immense, 
and  full  of  resolution,  a  stupendous  monster  of  an  eye. 

She  shut  her  lips  hard,  her  jaw  hardened,  and  she  set 
herself  to  struggle  with  him.  She  wrenched  her  head 
away  from  his  grip  and  got  her  arm  between  his  chest 
and  hers.  They  began  to  wrestle  fiercely.  Each  be- 
came frightfully  aware  of  the  other  as  a  plastic  energetic 

210 


DISCORDS 

body,  of  the  strong  muscles  of  neck  against  cheek,  of 
hands  gripping  shoulder-blade  and  waist.  "  How  dare 
you!"  she  panted,  with  her  world  screaming  and  grimac- 
ing insult  at  her.  "  How  dare  you!" 

They  were  both  astonished  at  the  other's  strength. 
Perhaps  Ramage  was  the  more  astonished.  Ann  Ve- 
ronica had  been  an  ardent  hockey  player  and  had  had 
a  course  of  jiu-jitsu  in  the  High  School.  Her  defence 
ceased  rapidly  to  be  in  any  sense  ladylike,  and  became 
vigorous  and  effective;  a  strand  of  black  hair  that  had 
escaped  its  hairpins  came  athwart  Ramage's  eyes,  and 
then  the  knuckles  of  a  small  but  very  hardly  clinched 
fist  had  thrust  itself  with  extreme  effectiveness  and  pain- 
fulness  under  his  jawbone  and  ear. 

"Let  go!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  through  her  teeth, 
strenuously  inflicting  agony,  and  he  cried  out  sharply 
and  let  go  and  receded  a  pace. 

"Now!"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "Why  did  you  dare  to 
do  that?" 


Each  of  them  stared  at  the  other/,  set  in  a  universe 
that  had  changed  its  system  of  values  with  kaleido- 
scopic completeness."}  Sfce~.  was  flushed,  and  her  eyes 
were  bright  and  angry;  her  breath  came  sobbing,  and 
her  hair  was  all  abroad  in  wandering  strands  of  black. 
He  too  was  flushed  and  ruffled;  one  side  of  his  collar 
had  slipped  from  its  stud  and  he  held  a  hand  to  the 
corner  of  his  jaw. 

"You  vixen!"  said  Mr.  Ramage,  speaking  the  simplest 
first  thought  of  his  heart. 

211 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  You  had  no  right — "  panted  Ann  Veronica. 

"Why  on  earth,"  he  asked,  "did  you  hurt  me  like 
that?" 

Ann  Veronica  did  her  best  to  think  she  had  not  de- 
liberately attempted  to  cause  him  pain.  She  ignored 
his  question. 

"I  never  dreamt!"  she  said. 

"What  on  earth  did  you  expect  me  to  do,  then?"  he 
asked. 

§  4 

Interpretation  came  pouring  down  upon  her  almost 
blSndingly;  she  understood  now  the  room,  the  waiter, 
the  whole  situation.  She  understood.  (She  leaped  to  a 
world  of  shabby  knowledge,  of  furtive  base  realizations?*) 
She  wanted  to  cry  out  upon  herself  for  the  uttermost 
fool  in  existence. 

"I  thought  you  wanted  to  have  a  talk  to  me,"  she 
said. 

"I  wanted  to  make  love  to  you. 

"You  knew  it,"  he  added,  in  her  momentary  silence. 

"You  said  you  were  in  love  with  me,"  said  Ann 
Veronica;  "I  wanted  to  explain — " 

"I  said  I  loved  and  wanted  you."  The  brutality  of 
his  first  astonishment  was  evaporating.  "I  am  in  love 
with  you.  You  know  I  am  in  love  with  you.  And 
then  you  go— ft^d  half  throttle  me.  ...  I  believe  you've 
crushed  ai  gland  )>r  something.  It  feels  like  it." 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "What  else  was 
I  to  do?" 

For  some  seconds  she  stood  watching  him,  and  both 

212 


DISCORDS 

were  thinking  very  quickly.  Her  state  of  mind  would 
have  seemed  altogether  discreditable  to  her  grand- 
mother. She  ought  to  have  been  disposed  to  faint  and 
scream  at  all  these  happenings;  she  ought  to  have  main- 
tained a  front  JD£ (outraged  dignity  to  veil  the  sinking 
of  her  heart.)  (l/ would  like  to  have  to  tell  it  so.  But 
indeed  that 'is  not  at  all  a  good  description  of  her  atti- 
tude. She  was  an  indignant  queen,  no  doubt;  she  was 
alarmed  and  disgusted  within  limits;  but  she  was  highly 
excited,  and  there  was  something,  some  low  adventu- 
rous strain  in  her  being,  some  element,  subtle  at  least  if 
base,  going  about  the  rioting  wavs  an^  CTOTflfi^  1<n- 
gurgrpfif,  rnf<afing-plftre,a  of  her  mind  declaring  that  the 
whole  affair  was  after  all — they  are  the  only  words 
that  express  it — a  very  great  lark  indeed.  At  the  bot- 
tom of  her  heart  she  was  not  a  bit  afraid  of  Ramage. 
She  had  unaccountable  gleams  of  sympathy  with  and 
liking  for  him.  And  the  grotesquest  fact  was  that  she 
dToTnot  so  much  loathe,  as  experience  with  a  quite  crit- 
ical condemnation  this  strange  sensation  of  being  kissed. 
Never  before  had  any  human  being  kissed  her  lips.  .  .  . 

It  was  only  some  hours  after  that  these  ambiguous 
elements  evaporated  and  vanished  and  loathing  came, 
and  she  really  began  to  be  thoroughly  sick  and  ashamed 
of  the  whole  disgraceful  quarrel  and  scuffle. 

He,  for  his  part,  was  trying  to  grasp  the  series  of 
unexpected  reactions  that  had  so  wrecked  their  tete-b- 
tete.  He  had  meant  to  be  master  of  his  fate  that  evening 
and  it  had  escaped  him  altogether.  It  had,  as  it  were, 
blown  up  at  the  concussion  of  his  first  step.  It  dawned 
upon  him  that  he  had  been  abominably  used  by  Ann 
Veronica. 

213 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  "I  brought  you  here  to  make 
love  to  you." 

"I  didn't  understand — your  idea  of  making  love. 
You  had  better  let  me  go  again." 

"Not  yet,"  he  said.  "I  do  love  you.  I  love  you 
all  the  more  for  the  streak  of  sheer  devil  in  you.  .  .  . 
You  are  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  desirable  thing 
I  have  ever  met  in  this  world.  It  was  good  to  kiss  you, 
even  at  the  price.  But,  by  Jove!  you  are  fierce!  You 
are  like  those  Roman  women  who  carry  stilettos  in 
their  hair." 

"  I  came  here  to  talk  reasonably,  Mr.  Ramage.  It  is 
abominable — ' ' 

"What  is  the  use  of  keeping  up  this  note  of  indig- 
nation, Ann  Veronica?  Here  I  am!  I  am  your  lover, 
burning  for  you,.  I  mean  to  have  you!  Don't  frown 
me  off  now.  |  Don't  go  back  into  Victorian  respecta- 
bility and  pretend  you  don't  know  and  you  can't  think 
and  all  the  rest  of  it^  One  comes  at  last  to  the  step 
from  dreams  to  reality.  This  is  your  moment.  No 
one_will^£Y£r^oye  you  as  I  love  J^QU^ggw.  I  have  beerT 
ctrearning  of  your  body  and  you  night  after  night.  I 
have  been  imaging — " 

"Mr.  Ramage,  I  came  here —  I  didn't  suppose  for 
one  moment  you  would  dare — " 

"Nonsense!  That  is  your  mistake!  You  are  too 
intellectual.  You  want  to  do  everything  with  your 
mind.  You  are  afraid  of  kisses.  You  are  afraid  of 
the  warmth  in  your  blood.  It's  just  because  all  that 
side  of  your  life  hasn't  fairly  begun." 

He  made  a  step  toward  her. 

"Mr.  Ramage,"  she  said,  sharply,  "I  have  to  make  it 
214 


DISCORDS 

plain  to  you.  I  don't  think  you  understand.  I  don't 
love  you.  I  don't.  I  can't  love  you.  I  love  some 
one  else.  It  is  repulsive.  It  disgusts  me  that  you 
should  touch  me." 

He  stared  in  amazement  at  this  new  aspect  of  the 
situation.  "You  love  some  one  else?"  he  repeated. 

"I  love  some  one  else.  I  could  not  dream  of  loving 
you." 

And  then  he  flashed  his  whole  conception  of  the  rela- 
tions of  men  and  women  upon  her  in  one  astonishing 
question.  His  hand  went  with  an  almost  instinctive  in- 
quiry to  his  jawbone  again.  "Then  why  the  devil," 
he  demanded,  "do  you  let  me  stand  you  dinners  and 
the  opera — and  why  do  you  come  to  a  cabinet  particulier 
with  me?" 

He  became  radiant  with  anger.  "You  mean  to  tell 
me,"  he  said,  "that  you  have  a  lover?  While  I  have 
been  keeping  you!  Yes — keeping  you!" 

This  view  of  life  he  hurled  at  her  as  if  it  were  an  of- 
fensive missile.  It  stunned  her.  She  felt  she  must  fly 
before  it  and  could  no  longer  do  so.  She  did  not  think 
for  one  moment  what  interpretation  he  might  put  upon 
the  word  "lover." 

"Mr.  Ramage,"  she  said,  clinging  to  her  one  point, 
"I  want  to  get  out  of  this  horrible  little  room.  It  has 
all  been  a  mistake.  I  have  been  stupid  and  foolish. 
Will  you  unlock  that  door?" 

"Never!"  he  said.  "Confound  your  lover!  Look 
here!  Do  you  really  think  I  am  going  to  run  you  while 
he  makes  love  to  you?  No  fear!  I  never  heard  of  any- 
thing so  cool.  If  he  wants  you,  let  him  get  you.  You're 
mine.  I've  paid  for  you  and  helped  you,  and  I'm  going 

215 


ANN   VERONICA 

to  conquer  you  somehow  —  if  I  have  to  break  you  to  do 
it.  Hitherto  you've  seen  only  my  easy,  kindly  side. 
But  now  —  confound  it!  how  can  you  prevent  it?  I  will 
kiss  you." 

"You  won't!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  the  clearest 
note  of  determination. 

He  seemed  to  be  about  to  move  toward  her.  She 
stepped  back  quickly,  and  her  hand  knocked  a  wine- 
glass from  the  table  to  smash  noisily  on  the  floor.  She 
caught  at  the  klea.  "If  you  come  a  step  nearer  to 
me,"  she  said,  (1  will  smash...  every  glass  on  this  ta- 


en,  by  God!"  he  said,  "you'll  be  locked  jup  I" 

Ann  Veronica  was  disconcerted  for  a^moment.  She 
had  a  vision  of  policemen,  reproving  magistrates,  a 
crowded  court,  public  disgrace.  She  saw  her  aunt  in 
tears,  her  father  white-faced  and  hard  hit.  "Don't 
come  nearer!"  she  said. 

There  was  a  discreet  knocking  at  the  door,  and  Ram- 
age's  face  changed. 

"No,"  she  said,  under  her  breath,  "you  can't  face 
it."  And  she  knew  that  she  was  safe. 

He  went  to  the  door.  "It's  all  right,"  he  said,  re- 
assuringly to  the  inquirer  without. 

Ann  Veronica  glanced  at  the  mirror  to  discover  'a 
flushed  and  dishevelled  disorder.  She  began  at  once 
a  hasty  readjustment  of  her  hair,  while  Ramage  parleyed 
with  inaudible  interrogations.  "A  glass  slipped  from 
the  table,"  he  explained  ____  "Nan.  Fas  du  tout.  Non. 
.  .  .  Niente.  .  .  .  Bittef  .  .  .  Oui,  dans  la  note.  .  .  .  Present- 
ly. Presently."  That  conversation  ended  and  he  turned 
to  her  again.  . 

216 


DISCORDS 

"I  am  going,"  she  said  grimly,  with  three  hairpins  in 
her  mouth. 

She  took  her  hat  from  the  peg  in  the  corner  and 
began  to  put  it  on.  He  regarded  that  perennial  miracle 
of  pinning  with  wrathful  eyes. 

"Look  here,  Ann  Veronica,"  he  began.  "I  want 
a  plain  word  with  you  about  all  this.  Do  you  mean 
to  tell  me  you  didn't  understand  why  I  wanted  you 
to  come  here?" 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it,"  said  Ann  Veronica  stoutly. 

"You  didn't  expect  that  I  should  kiss  you?" 

"How  was  I  to  know  that  a  man  would — would 
think  it  was  possible — when  there  was  nothing — no 
love?" 

"  How  did  I  know  there  wasn't  love?" 

That  silenced  her  for  a  moment.  "And  what  on 
earth,"  he  said,  "do  you  think  the  world  is  made  of? 
Why  do  you  think  I  have  been  doing  things  for 
you?  The  abstract  pleasure  of  goodness?  Are  you 
one  of  the  members  of  that  great  white  sisterhood 
that  takes  and  does  not  give?  The  good  accepting 
woman!  Do  you  really  suppose  a  girl  is  entitled  to 
live  at  free  quarters  on  any  man  she  meets  without 
giving  any  return?" 

"  I  thought,"  said  Ann  Veronica, "  you  were  my  friend." 

"Friend!  What  have  a  man  and  a  girl  in  cniprpon 
to  jmake  them  friends "?  Ask  that  lover  of  yours !  And 
even  with  friends,  would  you  have  it  all  Give  on  one  side 
and  all  Take  on  the  other?  .  .  .  Does  he  know  I  keep 
you?  .  .  .  You  won't  have  a  man's  lips  near  you,  but 
you'll  eat  out  of  his  hand  fast  enough." 

Ann  Veronica  was  stung  to  helpless  anger. 
217 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Mr.  Ramage,"  she  cried,  "you  are  outrageous! 
You  understand  nothing.  You  are — horrible.  Will 
you  let  me  go  out  of  this  room?" 

"No,"  cried  Ramage;  "h£ar  me  out!  I'll  have 
that  satisfaction,  anyhow.  (You  women,  with  your 
tricks  of  evasion,  you're  a  sex  of  swindlers.  )  You  have 
all  tne^msunctive  dexterity  of  parasites.  You  make 
yourself  charming  for  help.  You  climb  by  disappoint- 
ing men.  This  lover  of  yours — " 

"He  doesn't  know!"  cried  Ann  Veronica. 

"Well,  you  know." 

Ann  Veronica  could  have  wept  with  vexation.  In- 
deed, a  note  of  weeping  broke  her  voice  for  a  moment 
as  she  burst  out,  "  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  money 
was  a  loan!" 

"Loan!" 

"You  yourself  called  it  a  loan!" 

"Euphuism.     We  both  understood  that/' 

"  You  shall  have  every  penny  of  it  back." 

"I'll  frame  it— when  I  get  it." 

"I'll  pay  you  if  I  have  to  work  at  shirt-making  at 
threepence  an  hour." 

"You'll  never  pay  me.  You  think  you  will.  It's 
your  way  of  glossing  over  the  ethicaj_  position/"  It's 
the  sort  of  wayNa  woman  always  does~  gloss  ~over  her 
ethical  positions.)  You're  all  dependents — all  of  you. 
By  instinct.  Only  you  good  ones— sRirE  "You  shirk 
a  straightforward  and  decent  return  for  what  you  get 
from  us — taking  refuge  in  purity  and  delicacy  and  such- 
like when  it  comes  to  payment." 

"Mr.  Ramage,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "I  want  to 
go — now!" 

218 


But  she  did  not  get  away  just  then. 

Ramage's  bitterness  passed  as  abruptly  as  his  aggres- 
sion. "Oh,  Ann  Veronica!*'  he  cried,  "I  cannot  let 
you  go  like  this!  You  don't  understand.  You  can't 
possibly  understand ! " 

He  began  a  confused  explanation,  a  perplexing  con- 
tra^ictory^__apology  for  his  urgency  and  wrath.  "~  ffe" 
loved  Ann  Veronica,  he  said;  he  was  so  mad  to  have 
her  that  he  defeated  himself,  and  did  crude  and  alarming 
and  senseless  things.  His  vicious  abusiveness  vanished. 
He  suddenly  became  eloquentj  and  plausible.  (He  did 
make  her  perceive  something  of  the  acute,  tormenting 
desire  for  her  that  had  arisen  in  him  and  possessed  himS 
She  stood,  as  it  were,  directed  doorward,  with  her  eyes 
watching  every  movement,  listening  to  him,  repelled 
by  him  and  yet  dimly  understanding. 

At  any  rate  he  made  it  very  clear  that  night  that 
there  was  an  irip^Hk^fc  ^fs^2Ifl  in  life,  a  jarring 
something  that  must/shatter  all  her  dreams  of  a  way 
of  living  for  women  that  would  enable  them  to  be  free 
and  spacious  and  friendly  with  men,  and  that  was  the 
passionate  predisposition  of  men  to  believe  that  the 
love  of  wornen  can  be  earned  and  won  and  controlled  and 
compelled.  \He  flung  aside  all  his  talk  of  help  and 
disinterested  friendship  as  though  it  had  never  been 
even  a  disguise  between  them,  as  though  from  the  first 
it  was  no  more  than  a  fancy  dress  they  had  put  quite 
imderstandingly  upon  their  relationship.  He  had  set 
out  to  win  her,  and  she  had  let  him  start.  And  at  the 
thought  of  that  other  lover — he  was  convinced  that 
is  219 


ANN    VERONICA 

that  beloved  person  was  a  lover,  and  she  found  herself 
unable  to  say  a  word  to  explain  to  him  that  this  other  per- 
son, the  person  she  loved,  did  not  even  know  of  her  love 
— Ramage  grew  angry  and  savage  once  more,  and  re- 
turned suddenly  to  gibe  and  insult.  Men  do  services 
for  the  love  of  women,  and  the  woman  who  takes  must 
pay.  Such  was  the  simple  code  that  displayed  itself 
in  all  his  thoughts.  (He  left  that  aricKrule  clear  of  the 
least  mist  of  refinement  or  delicacy.  /That  he  should 
pay  forty  pounds  to  help  this  girl  who  preferred  another 
man  was  no  less  in  his  eyes  than  a  fraud  and  mockery 
that  made  her  denial  a  maddening  and  outrageous 
disgrace  to  him.  And  this  though  he  was  evidently 
passionately  in  love  with  her. 

For  a  while  he  threatened  her.  "You  have  put  all 
your  life  in  my  hands,"  he  declared.  "Think  of  that 
check  you  endorsed.  Therp-^t  is — against  you.  I 
defy  you  to  explain  it  away.  (  What  do  you  think  people 
will  make  of  that?  \  What  will  this  lover  of  yours  make 
of  that?" 

At  intervals  Ann  Veronica  demanded  to  go,  declaring 
her  undying  resolve  to  repay  him  at  any  cost,  and 
made  short  movements  doorward. 

But  at  last  this  ordeal  was  over,  and  Ramage  opened 
the  door.  She  emerged  with  a  white  face  and  wide- 
open  eyes  upon  a  little,  red-lit  landing.  She  went  past 
three  keenly  observant  and  ostentatiously  preoccupied 
waiters  down  the  thick-carpeted  staircase  and  out  of 
the  Hotel  Rococo,  that  remarkable  laboratory  of 
relationships,  past  a  tall  porter  in  blue  and  crimson, 
into  a  cool,  clear  night. 


DISCORDS 

§  6 

When  Ann  Veronica  reached  her  little  bed-sitting- 
room  again,  every  nerve  in  her  body  was  quivering 
with  shame  and  self-disgust. 

She  threw  hat  and  coat  on  the  bed  and  sat  down  before 
the  fire. 

"And  now,"  she  said,  splintering  the  surviving  piece 
of  coal  into  indignant  flame-spurting  fragments  with  one 
dexterous  blow,  "  what  am  I  to  do  ? 

"I'm  in  a  hole! — mess  is  a  better  word,  expresses  it 
better.  I'm  in  a  mess — a  nasty  mess!  a  filthy  mess! 
Oh,  no  end  of  a  mess!  Do  you  hear,  Ann  Veronica? — 
you're  in  a  nasty,  filthy,  unforgivable  mess! 

"  Haven't  I  just  made  a  silly  mess  of  things? 

"  Forty  pounds !     I  haven't  got  twenty !" 

She  got  up,  stamped  with  her  foot,  and  then,  suddenly 
remembering  the  lodger  below,  sat  down  and  wrenched 
off  her  boots. 

"  This  is  what  comes  of  being  a  young  woman  up  to 
date.  By  Jove!  I'm  beginning  to  have  my  doubts 
about  freedom! 

"You  silly  young  woman,  Ann  Veronica!  You  silly 
young  woman!  The  smeariness  of  the  thing! 

"The  smeariness  of  this  sort  of  thing!  .  .  .  Mauled 
about!" 

She  fell  to  rubbing  her  insulted  lips  savagely  with  the 
back  of  her  hand.  "Ugh!"  she  said. 

"  The  young  women  of  Jane  Austen's  time  didn't  g£t 
into  this  sort  of  scrape !     At  least — one  thinks  so.  .  .f.  I 
wonder  if  some  of  them  did — and  it  didn't  get  iteportecO 
Aunt  Jane  had  her  quiet  moments.     Most  of  them  didn't, 

221 


ANN    VERONICA 

anyhow.  They  were  properly  brought  up,  and  sat  still 
and  straight,  and  took  the  luck  fate  brought  them  as 
gentlewomen  should.  And  they  had  an  idea  of  what  men 
were  like  behind  all  their  nicety.  They  knew  they  were 
all  Bogey  in  disguise.  I  didn't!  I  didn't!  After  all — " 

For  a  time  her  mind  ran  on  daintiness  and  its  de- 
fensive restraints  as  though  it  was  the  one  desirable 
thing.  That  world  of  fine  printed  cambrics  and  escorted  I 
maidens,  of  delicate  secondary  meanings  and  refined! 
allusiveness,  presented  itself  to  her  imagination  with  the 
brightness  of  a  lost  paradise,  as  indeed  for  many  women 
it  is  a  lost  paradise. 

"I  wonder  if  there  is  anything  wrong  with  my 
manners,"  she  said.  "  I  wonder  if  I've  been  properly 
brought  up.  If  I  had  been  quite  quiet  and  white  and 
dignified,  wouldn't  it  have  been  different?  Would  he 
have  dared?  ..." 

For  some  creditable  moments  in  her  life  Ann  Veronica 
was  utterly  disgusted  with  herself;  she  was  wrung  with 
a  passionate  and  belated  desire  to  move  gently,  to  speak 
softly  and  ambiguously — to  be,  in  effect,  prim. 

Horrible'  details  recurred  to  her. 

"  Why,  among  other  things,  did  I  put  my  knuckles  in 
his  neck — deliberately  to  hurt  him?" 

She  tried  to  sound  the  humorous  note. 

"Are  you  aware,  Ann  Veronica,  you  nearly  throttled 
that  gentleman?" 

Then  she  reviled  her  own  foolish  way  of  putting  it. 

"You  ass  and  imbecile,  Ann  Veronica!  You  female 
cad!  Cad!  Cad!  .  .  .  Why  aren't  you  folded  up  clean 
in  lavender — as  every  young  woman  ought  to  be  ?  What 
have  you  been  doing  with  yourself?  ..." 

222 


DISCORDS 

She  raked  into  the  fire  with  the  poker. 

"  All  of  which  doesn't  help  me  in  the  slightest  degree 
to  pay  back  that  money." 

That  night  was  the  most  intolerable  one  that  Ann 
Veronica  had  ever  spent.  She  washed  her  face  with  un- 
wonted elaboration  before  she  went  to  bed.  This  time, 
there  was  no  doubt,  she  did  not  sleep.  The  more  she 
disentangled  the  lines  of  her  situation  the  deeper  grew 
her  self-disgust.  Occasionally  the  mere  fact  of  lying  in 
bed  became  unendurable,  and  she  rolled  out  and  marched 
about  her  room  and  whispered  abuse  of  herself — usually 
until  she  hit  against  some  article  of  furniture. 

Then  she  would  have  quiet  times,  in  which  she  would 
say  to  herself,  "Now  look  here!  Ijjet  me  think  it  all 
out!" 

For  the  first  time,  it  seemed  to  her,  she  faced  the  facts 
of  a  woman's  position  in  the  world — the  meagre  realities 
of  such  freedom  as  it  permitted  her,  the  almost  un- 
avoidable obligation  to  some  individual  man  under 
which  she  must  labor  for  even  a  foothold  in  the  world. 
She  had  flung  away  from  her  father's  support  with 
the  finest  assumption  of  personal  independence.  And 
here  she  was — in  a  mess  because  it  had  been  impossible 
for  her  to  avoid  leaning  upon  another  man.  She  had 
thought —  What  had  she  thought  ?  That  this  depend- 
ence of  women  was  but  an  illusion  which  needed  only 
to  be  denied  to  vanish.  She  had  denied  it  with  vigor, 
"and  here  she  was  ! 

She  did  not  so  much  exhaust  this  general  question  as 
pass  from  it  to  her  insoluble  individual  problem  again: 
"What  am  I  to  do?" 

She  wanted  first  of  all  to  fling  the  forty  pounds  back 

223 


ANN    VERONICA 

into  Ramage's  face.  But  she  had  spent  nearly  half  of  it, 
and  had  no  conception  of  how  such  a  sum  could  be  made 
good  again.  She  thought  of  all  sorts  of  odd  and  des- 
perate expedients,  and  with  passionate  petulance  re- 
jected them  all. 

She  took  refuge  in  beating  her  pillow  and  inventing 
insulting  epithets  for  herself.  She  got  up,  drew  up  her 
blind,  and  stared  out  of  window  at  a  dawn-cold  vision 
of  chimneys  for  a  time,  and  then  went  and  sat  on  the 
edge  of  her  bed.  What  was  the  alternative  to  going 
home?  No  alternative  appeared  in  that  darkness. 

It  seemed  intolerable  that  she  should  go  home  and 
admit  herself  beaten.  She  did  most  urgently  desire  to 
save  her  face  in  Morningside  Park,  and  for  long  hours 
she  could  think  of  no  way  of  putting  it  that  would  not  be 
in  the  nature  of  unconditional  admission  of  defeat. 

"I'd  rather  go  as  a  chorus-girl,"  she  said. 

She  was  not  very  clear  about  the  position  and  duties 
of  a  chorus-girl,  but  it  certainly  had  the  air  of  being  a 
last  desperate  resort.  There  sprang  from  that  a  vague 
hope  that  perhaps  she  might  extort  a  capitulation  from 
her  father  by  a  threat  to  seek  that  position,  and  then 
with  overwhelming  clearness  it  came  to  her  that  what- 
ever happened  she  would  never  be  able  to  tell  her  father 
about  her  debt.  The  completest  capitulation  would  not 
wipe  out  that  trouble.  And  she  felt  that  if  she  went 
home  it  was  imperative  to  pay.  She  would  always  be 
going  to  and  fro  up  the  Avenue,  getting  glimpses  of 
Ramage,  seeing  him  in  trains.  .  .  . 

For  a  time  she  promenaded  the  room. 

"  Why  did  I  ever  take  that  loan  ?  An  idiot  girl  in  an 
asylum  would  have  known  better  than  that! 

224 


DISCORDS 

1  "  Vulgarity ofj?Qul  and Jnnpcence.pf  mind — the  worst 
of  all  conceivable  combinations.  I  wish  some  one  would 
kill  Ramage  by  accident!  .  .  . 

"  But  then  they  would  find  that  check  endorsed  in  his 
bureau.  .  f  .Mr 

"I  wonder  what  he  will  do?"  She  tried  to  imagine 
situations  that  might  arise  out  of  Ramage's  antagonism, 
for  he  had  been  so  bitter  and  savage  that  she  could  not 
believe  that  he  would  leave  things  as  they  were. 

The  next  morning  she  went  out  with  her  post-office 
savings  bank-book,  and  telegraphed  for  a  warrant  to 
draw  out  all  the  money  she  had  in  the  world.  It  amount- 
ed to  two-and-twenty  pounds.  She  addressed  an  en- 
velope to  Ramage,  and  scrawled  on  a  half-sheet  of  paper, 
"  The  rest  shall  follow."  The  money  would  be  available 
in  the  afternoon,  and  she  would  send  him  four  five- 
pound  notes.  The  rest  she  meant  to  keep  for  her  im- 
mediate necessities.  A  little  relieved  by  this  step  tow- 
ard reinstatement,  she  went  on  to  the  Imperial  College 
to  forget  her  muddle  of  problems  for  a  time,  if  she  could, 
in  the  presence  of  Capes. 

§7 

For  a  time  the  biological  laboratory  was  full  of  heal- 
ing virtue.  Her  sleepless  night  had  left  her  languid 
but  not  stupefied,  and  for  an  hour  or  so  the  work  dis- 
tracted her  altogether  from  her  troubles. 

Then,  after  Capes  had  been  through  her  work  and 
had  gone  on,  it  came  to  her  that  the  fabric  of  this  life 
of  hers  was  doomed  to  almost  immediate  collapse;  that 
in  a  little  while  these  studies  would  cease,  and  perhaps 

225 


ANN   VERONICA 

she  would  never  set  eyes  on  him  again.  After  that 
consolations  fled. 

The  overnight  nervous  strain  began  to  tell;  she  be- 
came inattentive  to  the  work  before  her,  and  it  did  not 
get  on.  She  felt  sleepy  and  unusually  irritable.  She 
lunched  at  a  creamery  in  Great  Portland  Street,  and  as 
the  day  was  full  of  wintry  sunshine,  spent  the  rest  of 
the  lunch-hour  in  a  drowsy  gloom,  which  she  imagined 
to  be  thought  upon  the/problems  of  her  position,  on  a 
seat  in  Regent's  Park.  (A  girl  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  gave 
her  a  handbill  that  she  regarded  as  a  tract  until  she  saw 
"Votes  for  Women"  at  the  top/)  That  turned  her  mind 
to  the  more  generalized  aspects  of  her  perplexities  again. 
She  had  never  been  so  disposed  to  agree  that  the  position 
of  women  in  the  modern  world  is  intolerable. 

Capes  joined  the  students  at  tea,  and  displayed  him- 
self in  an  impish  mood  that  sometimes  possessed  him. 
He  did  not  notice  that  Ann  Veronica  was  preoccupied 
t  and  heavy-eyed.  Miss  Klegg  raised  the  question  of 
women's  suffrage,  and  he  set  himself  to  provoke  a  duel 
between  her  and  Miss  Garvice.  The  youth  with  the  hair 
brushed  back  and  the  spectacled  Scotchman  joined  in 
the  fray  for  and  against  the  women's  vote. 

Ever  and  again  Capes  appealed  to  Ann  Veronica.  He 
liked  to  draw  her  in,  and  she  did  her  best  to  talk.  But 
she  did  not  talk  readily,  and  in  order  to  say  something 
she  plunged  a  little,  and  felt  she  plunged.  Capes  scored 
back  with  an  uncompromising  vigor  that  was  his  way  of 
complimenting  her  intelligence.  But  this  afternoon  it 
discovered  an  unusual  vein  of  irritability  in  her.  He 
had  been  reading  Belfort  Bax,  and  declared  himself  a 
convert.  He  contrasted  the  lot  of  women  in  general 

226 


DISCORDS 

with  the  lot  of  men,  presented  men  as  patient,  self- 
immolating  martyrs,  ^nd  women  as  the  pampered 
favorites  of  Nature.  /A  vein  of  conviction  mingled  with 
his  burlesque., 

For  a  time  he  and  Miss  Klegg  contradicted  one  an- 
other. 

The  question  ceased  to  be  a  tea-table  talk,  and  be- 
came suddenly  tragically  real  for  Ann  Veronica.  There 
he  sat,  cheerfully  friendly  in  his  sex's  freedom — the  man 
she  loved,-  the  one  man  she  cared  should  unlock  the  way 
to  the  wide  world  for  her  imprisoned  feminine  possi- 
bilities, and  he  seemed  regardless  that  she  stifled  under 
his  eyes;  he  made  a  jest  of  all  this  passionate  insurgence 
of  the  souls  of  women  against  the  fate  of  their  conditions. 

Miss  Garvice  repeated  again,  and  almost  in  the  same 
words  she  used  at  every  discussion,  her  contribution  to 
the  great  question.  She  thought  that  women  were  not 
made  for  the  struggle  and  turmoil  of  life — their  place 
was  the  little  world,  the  home;  that  their  power  lay 
not  in  votes  but  in  influence  over  men  and  in  making 
the  minds  of  their  children  fine  and  splendid. 

"Women  should  understand  men's  affairs,  perhaps," 
said  Miss  Garvice,  "but  to  mingle  in  them  is  just  to 
sacrifice  that  power  of  influencing  they  can  exercise 
now." 

"There  is  something  sound  in  that  position,"  said 
Capes,  intervening  as  if  to  defend  Miss  Garvice  against 
a  possible  attack  from  Ann  Veronica.  "It  may  not  be 
just  and  so  forth,  but,  after  all,  it  is  how  things  are. 
Women  are  not  in  the  world  in  the  same  sense  that  men 
are — fighting  individuals  in  a  scramble. .  I  don't  see 
how  they  can  be.  Every  home  is  a  little  recess,  a  niche, 

227 


ANN    VERONICA 

bus 

ire 


it  of  the  world  of  business  and  competition,  in  which 
'women  and  the  future  shelter." 


11 A  little  pit!"  said  Ann  Veronica;  "a  little  prison!" 
"It's  just  as  often  a  little  refuge.     Anyhow,  that  is 
how  things  are." 

I  '/Arid  the  man  stands  as  the  master  at  the  mouth  of 
th^den.) 
As  sentinel.__  You  forget  all  the  mass  of  (training 
and  traditionCand  instinct 'that  go  to  make  him  a  toler- 
able master.  Nature  is  a  mother;  her  sympathies  have 
always  been  feminist,  and  she  has  tempered  the  man  to 
the  shorn  woman." 

"I  wish,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  sudden  anger, 
"that  you  could  know  what  it  is  to  live  in  a  pit!" 

She  stood  up  as  she  spoke,  and  put  down  her  cup  be- 
side Miss  Garvice's.  She  addressed  Capes  as  though 
she  spoke  to  him  alone. 

"I  can't  endure  it,"  she  said. 

Every  one  turned  to  her  in  astonishment. 

She  felt  she  had  to  go  on.  "No  man  can  realize,"  she 
said,  "what  that  pit  can  be.  The  way — the  way  we 
are  led  on!  We  are  taught  to  believe  we  are  free  in  the 
world,  to  think  we  are  queens.  .  .  .  Then  we  find  out. 
We  find  out  no  man  will  treat  a  woman  fairly  as  man 
to  man — no  man.  He  wants  you — or  he  doesn't;  and 
then  he  helps  some  other  woman  against  you.  .  .  .  What 
you  say  is  probably  all  true  and  necessary.  .  .  .  But 
think  of  the  disillusionment!  Except  for  our  sex  we 
have  minds  like  men,  desires  like  men.  We  come  out 
into  the  world,  some  of  us — " 

She  paused.  Her  words,  as  she  said  them,  seemed 
to  her  to  mean  nothing,  and  there  was  so  much  that 

228 


DISCORDS 

struggled  for  expression.  "Women  are jnocked."  she 
said.  "Whenever  they  try  to  take  hold  of  life  a  man 
intervenes." 

She  felt,  with  a  sudden  horror,  that  she  might  weep. 
She  wished  she  had  not  stood  up.  She  wondered  wildly 
why  she  had  stood  up.  No  one  spoke,  and  she  was  im- 
pelled to  flounder  on.  "Think  of  the  mockery!"  she 
said.  "Think  how  dumb  we  find  ourselves  and  stifled! 
I  know  we  seem  to  have  a  sort  of  freedom.  .  .  .  Have  you 
ever  tried  to  run  and  jump  in  petticoats,  Mr.  Capes? 
Well,  think  what  it  must  be  to  live  in  them — soul  and 
mind  and  body!  It's  fun  for  a  man  to  jest  at  our 
position." 

"I  wasn't  jesting,"  said  Capes,  abruptly. 

She  stood  face  to  face  with  him,  and  his  voice  cut 
across  her  speech  and  made  her  stop  abruptly.  She  was 
sore  and  overstrung,  and  it  was  intolerable  to  her  that 
he  should  stand  within  three  yards  of  her  unsuspectingly, 
with  an  incalculably  vast  power  over  her  happiness. 
She  was  sore  with  the  perplexities  of  her  preposterous 
position.  She  was  sick  of  herself,  of  her  life,  of  every- 
thing but  him;  anc|  for  him  all  her  masked  and  hidden 
being  was  crying  out.) 

She  stopped  abruptly  at  the  sound  of  his  voice,  and 
lost  the  thread  of  what  she  was  saying.  In  the  pause 
she  realized  the  attention  of  the  others  converged  upon 
her,  and  that  the  tears  were  brimming  over  her  eyes. 
She  felt  a  storm  of  emotion  surging  up  within  her.  She 
became  aware  of  the  Scotch  student  regarding  her  with 
stupendous  amazement,  a  tea-cup  poised  in  one  hairy 
hand  and  his  faceted  glasses  showing  a  various  enlarge- 
ment of  segments  of  his  eye. 

229 


ANN    VERONICA 

The  door  into  the  passage  offered  itself  with  an  irre- 
sistible invitation — the  one  alternative  to  a  public,  in- 
explicable passion  of  weeping. 

Capes  flashed  to  an  understanding  of  her  intention, 
sprang  to  his  feet,  and  opened  the  door  for  her  retreat. 


§  8 

"Why  should  I  ever  come  back?"  she  said  to  herself, 
as  she  went  down  the  staircase. 

She  went  to  the  post-office  and  drew  out  and  sent  off 
her  money  to  Ramage.  And  then  she  came  out  into  the 
street,  sure  only  of  one  thing — that  she  could  not  return 
directly  to  her  lodgings.  She  wanted  air — and  the 
distraction  of  having  moving  and  changing  things  about 
her.  The  evenings  were  beginning  to  draw  out,  and  it 
would  not  be  dark  for  an  hour.  She  resolved  to  walk 
across  the  Park  to  the  Zoological  gardens,  and  so  on 
by  way  of  Primrose  Hill  to  Hampstead  Heath.  There 
she  would  wander  about  in  the  kindly  darkness.  And 
think  things  out.  .  .  . 

Presently  she  became  aware  of  footsteps  hurrying  after 
her,  and  glanced  back  to  find  Miss  Klegg,  a  little  out  of 
breath,  in  pursuit. 

Ann  Veronica  halted  a  pace,  and  Miss  Klegg  came 
alongside. 

"Do  you  go  across  the  Park?" 

"Not  usually.  But  I'm  going  to-day.  I  want  a 
walk." 

"I'm  not  surprised  at  it.  I  thought  Mr.  Capes  most 
trying." 

230 


DISCORDS 

"  Oh,  it  wasn't  that.     I've  had  a  headache  all  day." 

"I  thought  Mr.  Capes  most  unfair,"  Miss  Klegg  went 
on  in  a  small,  even  voice;  "most  unfair!  I'm  glad  you 
spoke  out  as  you  did." 

"I  didn't  mind  that  little  argument." 

"You  gave  it  him  well.  What  you  said  wanted  say- 
ing. After  you  went  he  got  up  and  took  refuge  in  the 
preparation-room.  Or  else  /  would  have  finished  him." 

Ann  Veronica  said  nothing,  and  Miss  Klegg  went  on: 
"He  very  often  is — most  unfair.  He  has  a  way  of 
sitting  on  people.  He  wouldn't  like  it  if  people  did  it  to 
him.  (ge  jumps  the  words  out  of  your  mouth ;  he  takes 
hold  of  what  you  have  to  say  before  you  have  had  time 
to  express  it  properly,  '0 

Pause. 

"I  suppose  he's  frightfully  clever,"  said  Miss  Klegg. 

"  He's  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  he  can't  be 
much  over  thirty,"  said  Miss  Klegg. 

"He  writes  very  well,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"He  can't  be  more  than  thirty.  He  must  have 
married  when  he  was  quite  a  young  man." 

"Married?"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  Didn't  you  know  he  was  married?"  asked  Miss  Klegg, 
and  was  struck  by  a  thought  that  made  her  glance 
quickly  at  her  companion. 

Ann  Veronica  had  no  answer  for  a  moment.  She 
turned  her  head  away  sharply.  Some  automaton  within 
her  produced  in  a  quite  unfamiliar  voice  the  remark, 
"They're  playing  football." 

"It's  too  far  for  the  ball  to  reach  us,"  said  Miss 
Klegg. 

"I  didn't  know  Mr.  Capes  was  married,"  said  Ann 
231 


ANN    VERONICA 

Veronica,  resuming  the  conversation  with  an  entire  dis- 
appearance of  her  former  lassitude. 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Miss  Klegg;  "I  thought  every  one 
knew." 

"No,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  offhandedly.  "Never 
heard  anything  of  it." 

"  I  thought  every  one  knew.  I  thought  every  one  had 
heard  about  it." 

"But  why?" 

"  He's  married — and,  I  believe,  living  separated  from  his 
wife.  There  was  a  case,  or  something,  some  years  ago." 

"What  case?" 

"A   divorce — or  something — I   don't   know.     But   I 
have  heard  that  he  almost  had  to  leave  the  schools.     If 
it  hadn't  been  for  Professor  Russell  standing  up  for  him, 
» they  say  he  would  have  had  to  leave." 

"Was  he  divorced,  do  you  mean?" 

"No,  but  he  got  himself  mixed  up  in  a  divorce  case. 
I  forget  the  particulars,  but  I  know  it  was  something 
very  disagreeable.  It  was  among  jartistic  peoplel" 

Ann  Veronica  was  silent  for  a  while. 

"I  thought  every  one  had  heard,"  said  Miss  Klegg. 
"Or  I  wouldn't  have  said  anything  about  it." 

"I  suppose  all  men,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  in  a  tone  of 
detached  criticism,  "  get  some ^suchje^a^^lement.  And, 
anyhow,  it  doesn't  matter  to  us."  She  turned  abruptly 
at  right  angles  to  the  path  they  followed.  "This  is  my 
way  back  to  my  side  of  the  Park,"  she  said. 

"I  thought  you  were  coming  right  across  the  Park." 

"Oh  no,"  said  Ann  Veronica;  "I  have  some  work  to 
do.  I  just  wanted  a  breath  of  air.  And  they'll  shut  the 
gates  presently.  It's  not  far  from  twilight." 

232 


DISCORDS 

§9 

She  was  sitting  brooding  over  her  fire  about  ten  o'clock 
that  night  when  a  sealed  and  registered  envelope  was 
brought  up  to  her. 

She  opened  it  and  drew  out  a  letter,  and  folded  within 
it  were  the  notes  she  had  sent  off  to  Ramage  that  day. 
The  letter  began: 

"My  DEAREST  GIRL, — /  cannot  let  you  do  this  foolish 
thing—" 

She  crumpled  notes  and  letter  together  in  her  hand,  and 
then  with  a  passionate  gesture  flung  them  into  the  fire. 
Instantly  she  seized  the  poker  and  made  a  desperate 
effort  to  get  them  out  again.  But  she  was  only  able  to 
save  a  corner  of  the  letter.  The  twenty  pounds  burned 
with  avidity. 

She  remained  for  some  seconds  crouching  at  the  fender, 
poker  in  hand. 

"By  Jove!"  she  said,  standing  up  at  last,  "that  about 
finishes  it,  Ann  Veronica!" 


CHAPTER   THE    TENTH 

THE    SUFFRAGETTES 
§    I 

"r  I  ^HERE  is  only  one  way  out  of  all  this,"  said  Ann 

1  Veronica,  sitting  .up  in  her  little  bed  in  the  dark- 
ness and  biting  at  her  nails. 

"I  thought  I  was  just  up  against  Morningside  Park 
and  father,  but  it's  the  whole  order  of  things — the 
whole  blessed  order  of  things.  ..." 

She  shivered.  She  frowned  and  gripped  her  hands 
about  her  knees  very  tightly.  Her  mind  developed 
into  savage  wrath  at  the  present  conditions  of  a  woman's 
life. 

"I  suppose  all  life  is  an  affair  of  chances.  But  a 
woman's  life  is  all  chance,  (it's  artificially  chance. 
Find  your  man,  that's  the  rule.  All  the  rest  is  humbug 
and  delicacy.  He's  the  handle  of  life  for  you.  He  will 
let  you  live  if  it  pleases  him.  .  .  . 

"Can't  it  be  altered? 

"I  suppose  an  actress  is  free?  ..." 

She  tried  to  think  of  some  altered  state  of  affairs 
in  which  these  monstrous  limitations  would  be  alle- 
viated, in  which  women  would  stand  on  their  own  feet 
in  equal  citizenship  with  men.  For  a  time  she  brooded 

234 


THE    SUFFRAGETTES 

on  the  ideals  and  suggestions  of  the  Socialists,  on  the 
vague  intimations  of  an  Endowment  of  Motherhood, 
of  a  complete  relaxation  of  that  intense  individual 
dependence  for  women  which  is  woven  into  the  existing 
social  order.  At  the  back  of  her  mind  there  seemed 
always  one  irrelevant  qualifying  spectator  whose 
presence  she  sought  to  disregard.  She  would  not  look 
at  him,  would  not  think  of  him ;  when  her  mind  wavered, 
then  she  muttered  to  herself  in  the  darkness  so  as  to  keep 
hold  of  her  generalizations. 

"It  is  true.  It  is  no  good  waiving  the  thing;  it  is 
true.  Unless  women  are  never  to  be  free,  nevej>4e^be 
even  respected,  there  must  be  a  generation  o^m^rtyrs. 
.  .  .  Why^shouldn't  we  be  martyrs?  There's  nothing 
else  for  most  ofHsT^hyhow.  It's  a  sort  of  blacklegging 
to  want  to  have  a  life  of  one's  own.  ..." 

She  repeated,  as  if  she  answered  an  objector:  "A 
sort  of  blacklegging. 

"A  sex  of  blacklegging  clients." 

Her  mind  diverged  to  other  aspects,  and  another 
type  of  womanhood. 

"Poor  little  Miniver!  What  can  she  be  but  what  she 
is?  ...  Because  she  states  her  case  in  a  tangle,  drags 
it  through  swamps  of  nonsense,  it  doesn't  alter  the  fact 
that  she  is  right." 

That  phrase  about  dragging  the  truth  through  swamps 
of  nonsense  she  remembered  from  Capes.  At  the  recol- 
lection that  it  was  his,  she  seemed  to  fall  through  a  thin 
surface,  as  one  might  fall  through  the  crust  of  a  lava 
into  glowing  depths.  She  wallowed  for  a  time  in  the 
thought  of  Capes,  unable  to  escape  from  his  image 
and  the  idea  of  his  presence  in  her  life. 
16  235 


ANN    VERONICA 

She  let  her  mind  run  into  dreams  of  that  cloud  paradise 
of  an  altered  world  in  which  the  Goopes  and  Minivers, 
the  Fabians  and  reforming  people  believed.  Across 
that  world  was  written  in  letters  of  light,  "Endowment 
of  Motherhood."  Suppose  in  some  complex  yet  con- 
ceivable way  women  were  endowed,  were  no  longer 
economically  and  socially  dependent  on  men.  "If  one 
was  free,"  she  said,  "one  could  go  to  him.  .  .  .  This  vile 
hovering  to  catch  a  man's  eye!  .  .  .  One  could  go  to  him 
and  tell  him  one  loved  him.  I  want  to  love  him.  A 
little  love  from  him  would  be  enough.  It  would  hurt 
no  one.  It  would  not  burden  him  with  any  obligation." 

She  groaned  aloud  and  bowed  her  forehead  to  her 
knees.  She  floundered  deep.  She  wanted  to  kiss  his 
feet.  His  feet  would  have  the  firm  texture  of  his  hands. 

Then  suddenly  her  spirit  rose  in  revolt.  "I  will 
not  have  this  slavery,"  she  said.  "I  will  not  have  this 
slavery." 

She  shook  her  fist  ceilingward.  "Do  you  hear!"  she 
said,  "whatever  you  are,  wherever  you  are!  I  will  not 
be  slave  to  the  thought  of  any  man,  slave  to  the  customs 
of  any  time.  Confound  this  slavery  of  sex!  I  am  a 
man!_  I  will  get  this  under  if  I  am  killed  in  doing  it!" 

She  scowled  into  the  cold  blacknesses  about  her. 

"Manning,"  she  said,  and  contemplated  a  figure  of 
inaggressive  persistence.  "No!"  Her  thoughts  had 
turned  in  a  new  direction. 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  she  said,  after  a  long  interval, 
"if  they  are  absurd.  They  mean  something.  They 
mean  everything  that  women  can  mean — except  sub- 
mission. The  vote  is  only  the  beginning,  the  necessary 
beginning.  If  we  do  not  begin — " 

236 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

She  had  come  to  a  resolution.  Abruptly  she  got 
out  of  bed,  smoothed  her  sheet  and  straightened  her 
pillow  and  lay  down,  and  fell  almost  instantly  asleep. 


§   2 


The  next  morning  was  as  dark  and  foggy  as  if  it 
was  mid-November  instead  of  early  March.  Ann 
Veronica  woke  rather  later  than  usual,  and  lay  awake 
for  some  minutes  before  she  remembered  a  certain 
resolution  she  had  taken  in  the  small  hours.  Then 
instantly  she  got  out  of  bed  and  proceeded  to  dress. 

She  did  not  start  for  the  Imperial  College.  She 
spent  the  morning  up  to  ten  in  writing  a  series  of  un- 
successful letters  to  Ramage,  which  she  tore  up  un- 
finished; and  finally  she  desisted  and  put  on  her  jacket 
and  went  out  into  the  lamp-lit  obscurity  and!  slimy 
streets.  She  turned  a  resolute  face  southward. 

She  followed  Oxford  Street  into  Holborn,  and  then 
she  inquired  for  Chancery  Lane.  There  she  sought 
and  at  last  found  107 A,  one  of  those  heterogeneous 
piles  of  offices  which  occupy  the  eastern  side  of  the 
lane.  She  studied  the  painted  names  of  firms  and 
persons  and  enterprises  on  the  wall,  and  discovered 
that  the  Women's  Bond  of  Freedom  occupied  several 
contiguous~sutles  (JH  Hi*  first  floor.  She  went  up-stairs 
and  hesitated  between  four  doors  with  ground-glass 
panes,  each  of  which  professed  "The  Women's  Bond 
of  Freedom"  in  neat  black  letters.  She  opened  one 
and  found  herself  in  a  large  untidy  room  set  with  chairs 
that  were  a  little  disarranged  as  if  by  an  overnight 

237 


ANN    VERONICA 

meeting.  On  the  walls  were  notice-boards  bearing 
clusters  of  newspaper  slips,  three  or  four  big  posters 
of  (monster  meetings)  one  of  which  Ann  Veronica  had 
attended  with  Miss  Miniver,  and  a  series  of  announce- 
ments in  purple  copying -ink,  and  in  one  corner  was  a 
pile  of  banners.  There  was  no  one  at  all  in  this  room, 
but  through  the  half-open  door  of  one  of  the  small 
apartments  that  gave  upon  it  she  had  a  glimpse  of 
two  very  young  girls  sitting  at  a  littered  table  and 
writing  briskly. 

She  walked  across  to  this  apartment  and,  opening 
the  door  a  little  wider,  discovered  a  press  section  of 
the  movement  at  work. 

"I  want  to  inquire,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"Next  door,"  said  a  spectacled  young  person  of  sev- 
enteen or  eighteen,  with  an  impatient  indication  of  the 
direction. 

In  the  adjacent  apartment  Ann  Veronica  found  a 
middle-aged  woman  with  a  tired  face  under  the  tired 
hat  she  wore,  sitting  at  a  desk  opening  letters  while  a 
dusky,  untidy  girl  of  eight-  or  nine-and-twenty  ham- 
mered industriously  at  a  typewriter.  The  tired  woman 
looked  up  in  inquiring  silence  at  Ann  Veronica's  dim- 
dent  entry. 

"I  want  to  know  more  about  this  movement,"  said 
Ann  Veronica. 

"Are  you  with  us?"  said  the  tired  woman. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Ann  Veronica;  "I  think  I  am. 
I  want  very  much  to  do  something  for  women.  But  I 
want  to  know  what  you  are  doing." 

The  tired  woman  sat  still  for  a  moment.  "  You  haven't 
come  here  to  make  a  lot  of  difficulties?"  she  asked. 

238 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

"No,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "but  I  want  to  know." 

The  tired  woman  shut  her  eyes  tightly  for  a  moment, 
and  then  looked  with  them  at  Ann  Veronica.  "What 
can  you  do?"  she  asked. 

"Do?" 

"Are  you  prepared  to  do  things  for  us?  Distribute 
bills?  Write  letters?  Interrupt  meetings?  Canvass 
at  elections?  Face  dangers?" 

"If  I  am  satisfied—" 

"If  we  satisfy  you?" 
£"Then,  if  possible,  I  ™rr>11M  IJJlBl  frMF*  **  p™'-*™^' 

"It  isn't  nice  going  to  prison." 

"It  would  suit  me." 

"  It  isn't  nice  getting  there." 

"That's  a  question  of  detail,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

The  tired  woman  looked  quietly  at  her.  "What  are 
your  objections?"  she  said. 

"It  isn't  objections  exactly.  I  want  to  know  what 
you  are  doing;  how  you  think  this  work  of  yours  really 
does  serve  women." 

"We  are  working  for  the  equal  citizenship  of  men 
and  women,"  said  the  tired  woman.  "Women  have 
been  and  are  treated  as  the  inferiors  of  men;  we  want 
to  make  them  their  equals." 

"Yes,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "I  agree  to  that.     But — " 

The  tired  woman  raised  her  eyebrows  in  mild  protest. 

"Isn't  the  question  more  complicated  than  that?" 
said  Ann  Veronica. 

"You  could  have  a  talk  to  Miss  Kitty  Brett  this 
afternoon,  if  you  liked.  Shall  I  make  an  appointment 
for  you?" 

Miss  Kitty  Brett  was  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 

239 


ANN    VERONICA 

leaders  of  the  movement.  Ann  Veronica  snatched  at 
the  opportunity,  and  spent  most  of  the  intervening 
time  in  the  Assyrian  Court  of  the  British  Museum,  read- 
ing and  thinking  over  a  little  book  upon  the  feminist 
movement  the  tired  woman  had  made  her  buy.  She 
got  a  bun  and  some  cocoa  in  the  little  refreshment- 
room,  and  then  wandered  through  the  galleries  up-stairs, 
crowded  with  Polynesian  idols  and  Polynesian  dancing- 
garments,  and  all  the  simple  immodest  accessories  to 
life  in  Polynesia,  to  a  seat  among  the  mmnmies.  She 
was  trying  to  bring  her  problems  to  a  head,  and  her  mind 
insisted  upon  being  even  more  discursive  and  atmos- 
pheric than  usual.  It  generalized  everything  she  put 
to  it. 

"Why  should  women  be  dependent  on  men?"  she 
asked;  and  the  question  was  at  once  converted  into  a 
system  of  variations  upon  the  theme  of  "Why  are 
things  as  they  are?" — "Why  are  human  beings  vivi- 
parous?"— "Why  are  people  hungry  thrice  a  day?" — 
"Why  does  one  faint  at  danger?" 

She  stood  for  a  time  looking  at  the  dry  limbs  and  still 
human  face  of  that  desiccated  unwrapped  mummy  from 
the  very  beginnings  of  social  life.  It  looked  very  pa- 
tient, she  thought,  and  a  little  self-satisfied.  It  looked 
as  if  it  had  taken  its  world  for  granted  and  prospered 
on  that  assumption — a  world  in  which  children  were 
trained  to  obey  their  elders  and  the  wills  of  women  over- 
ruled as  a  matter  of  course.  It  was  wonderful  to  think 
this  thing  had  lived,  had  felt  and  suffered.  Perhaps 
once  it  had  desired  some  other  human  being  intolerably. 
Perhaps  some  one  had  kissed  the  brow  that  was  now  so 
cadaverous,  rubbed  that  sunken  cheek  with  loving 

240 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

fingers,  held  that  stringy  neck  with  passionately  living 
hands.  But  all  of  that  was  forgotten.  "In  the  end," 
it  seemed  to  be  thinking,  "  they  embalmed  me  with  the 
utmost  respect — sound  spices  chosen  to  endure — the 
best!  fl  took  my  world  as  I  found  it.  \  Things  are  so!" 


§3 

Ann  Veronica's  first  impression  of  Kitty  Brett  was 
that  she  was  aggressive  and  disagreeable;  her  next  that 
she  was  a  person  of  amazing  persuasive  power.  She 
was  perhaps  three-and-twenty,  and  very  pink  and 
healthy-looking,  showing  a  great  deal  of  white  and 
rounded  neck  above  her  business-like  but  altogether 
feminine  blouse,  and  a  good  deal  of  plump,  gesticulat- 
ing forearm  out  of  her  short  sleeve.  She  had  animated 
dark  blue-gray  eyes  under  her  fine  eyebrows,  and  dark 
brown  hair  that  rolled  back  simply  and  effectively  from 
her  broad  low  forehead.  And  she  was  about  as  capable 
of  intelligent  argument  as  a  runaway  steam-roller. 
She  was  a  trained^being — trained  by  (an  implacable 
mother)  to  one  end. 

She  spoke  with  fluent  enthusiasm.  She  did  not  so 
much  deal  with  Ann  Veronica's  interpolations  as  dis- 
pose of  them  with  quick  and  use-hardened  repartee, 
and  then  she  went  on  with  a  fine  directness  to  sketch 
the  case  for  her  agitation,  for  that  remarkable  rebellion 
of  the  women  that  was  then  agitating  the  whole  world 
of  politics  and  discussion.  She  assumed  with  a  kind  of 
mesmeric  force  all  the  propositions  that  Ann  Veronica 
wanted  her  to  define. 

241 


ANN    VERONICA 

"What  do  we  want?  What  is  the  goal?"  asked  Ann 
Veronica. 

"Freedom!  Citizenship!  And  the  way  to  that — 
•  the  way  to  everything — is  the  Vote." 

Ann  Veronica  said  something  about  a  general  change 
of  ideas. 

f  "  How  can  you  change  people's  ideas  if  you  have  no 
pj3wer?r  said  Kitty  Brett. 

Ann  Veronica  was  not  ready  enough  to  deal  with  that 
counter-stroke . 

"One  doesn't  want  to  turn  the  whole  thing  into  a 
mere  sex  antagonism." 

"When  women  get  justice,"  said  Kitty  Brett,  "there 
will  be  no  sex  antagonism.  None  at  all.  Until  then 
we  mean  to  keep  on  hammering  away." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  much  of  a  woman's  difficulties 
are  economic." 

"  That  will  follow, "  said  Kitty  Brett— "  that  will  follow. " 

She  interrupted  as  Ann  Veronica  was  about  to  speak 
again,  with  a  bright  contagious  hopefulness.  "Every- 
thing will  follow,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  trying  to  think  where 
they  were,  trying  to  get  things  plain  again  that  had 
seemed  plain  enough  in  the  quiet  of  the  night. 

"  Nothing  was  ever  done,"  Miss  Brett  asserted,  "with- 
out a  certain  element  of  Faith.  After  we  have  got  the 
Vote  and  are  recognized  as  citizens,  then  we  can  come 
to  all  these  other  things." 

Even  in  the  glamour  of  Miss  Brett's  assurance  it 
seemed  to  Ann  Veronica  that  this  was,  after  all,  no  more 
than  the  gospel  of  Miss  Miniver  with  a  new  set  of  res- 
onances. And  like  that  gospel  it  meant  something, 

242 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

something  different  from  its  phrases,  something  elusive, 
and  yet  something  that  in  spite  of  the  superficial  inco- 
herence of  its  phrasing,  was  largely  essentially  true. 
fThere  was  something  holding  women  down,  holding 
women  back,  and  if  it  wasn't  exactly  man-made  law, 
man-made  law  was  an  aspect  of  it.  There  was  some- 
thing indeed  holding  the  whole  species  back  from  the 
imaginable  largeness  of  life.  .  .  . 

"  The  Votaislh^ymbol  jpf . everything,  * '  said  Miss  Brett. 

She  made  an  abrupt  personal  appeal. 

"Oh!  please  don't  lose  yourself  in  a  wilderness  of 
secondary  considerations,"  she  said.  "Don't  ask  me 
to  tell  you  all  that  women  can  do,  all  that  women  can 
be.  There  is  a  new  life,  different  from  the  old  life  of 
dependence,  possible.  If  only  we  are  not  divided.  If 
only  we  work  together.  This  is  the  one  movement  that 
brings  women  of  different  classes  together  for  a  com- 
mon purpose.  If  you  could  see  how  it  gives  them  souls, 
women  who  have  taken  things  for  granted,  who  have 
given  themselves  up  altogether  to  pettiness  and  vanity . ..." 

"Give  me  something  to  do,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  in- 
terrupting her  persuasions  at  last.  "It  has  been  very 
kind  of  you  to  see  me,  but  I  don't  want  to  sit  and  talk 
and  use  your  time  any  longer.  I  want  to  do  something. 
I  want  to  hammer  myself  against  all  this  that  pens 
women  in.  I  feel  that  I  shall  stifle  unless  I  can  do 
something — and  do  something  soon." 


§  4 

It  was  not  Ann  Veronica's  fault  that  the  night's  work 
should  have  taken  upon  itself  the  forms  of  wild  bur- 

243 


ANN   VERONICA 

lesque.  She  was  in  deadly  earnest  in  everything  she 
did.  It  seemed  to  her  the  last  desperate  attack  upon  the 
universe  that  would  not  let  her  live  as  she  desired  to 
live,  that  penned  her  in  and  controlled  her  and  directed 
her  and  disapproved  of  her,  the  same  invincible  wrap- 
pering,  the  same  leaden  tyranny  of  a  universe  that  she 
had  vowed  to  overcome  after  that  memorable  conflict 
with  her  father  at  Morningside  Park. 

She  was  listed  for  the  raid — she  was  informed  it  was 
to  be  a  raid  upon  the  House  of  Commons,  though  no 
particulars  were  given  her — and  told  to  go  alone  to  14, 
Dexter  Street,  Westminster,  and  not  to  ask  any  police- 
man to  direct  her.  14,  Dexter  Street,  Westminster,  she 
found  was  not  a  house  but  a  yard  in  an  obscure  street, 
with  big  gates  and  the  name  of  Podgers  &  Carlo,  Carriers 
and  Furniture  Removers,  thereon.  She  was  perplexed 
by  this,  and  stood  for  some  seconds  in  the  empty  street 
hesitating,  until  the  appearance  of  another  circumspect 
woman  under  the  street  lamp  at  the  corner  reassured 
her.  In  one  of  the  big  gates  was  a  little  door,  and  she 
rapped  at  this.  It  was  immediately  opened  by  a  man 
with  light  eyelashes  and  a  manner  suggestive  of  re- 
strained passion.  "Come  right  in,"  he  hissed  under 
his  breath,  with  the  true  conspirator's  note,  closed  the 
door  very  softly  and  pointed,  "Through  there!" 

By  the  meagre  light  of  a  gas  lamp  she  perceived 
a  cobbled  yard  with  four  large  furniture  vans  stand- 
ing with  horses  and  lamps  alight.  A  slender  young 
man,  wearing  glasses,  appeared  from  the  shadow  of 
the  nearest  van.  "Are  you  A,  B,  C,  or  D?"  he 
asked. 

"They  told  me  D,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

244 


THE    SUFFRAGETTES 

"Through  there/'  he  said,  and  pointed  with  the  pam- 
phlet he  was  carrying. 

Ann  Veronica  found  herself  in  a  little  stirring  crowd 
of  excited  women,  whispering  and  tittering  and  speak- 
ing in  undertones. 

The  light  was  poor,  so  that  she  saw  their  gleaming 
faces  dimly  and  indistinctly.  No  one  spoke  to  her. 
She  stood  among  them,  watching  them  and  feeling 
curiously  alien  to  them.  The  oblique  ruddy  lighting 
distorted  them  oddly,  made  queer  bars  and  patches  of 
shadow  upon  their  clothes.  "It's  Kitty's  idea,"  said 
one,  "we  are  to  go  in  the  vans." 

"Kitty  is  wonderful,"  said  another. 

"Wonderful!" 

"I  have  always  longed  for  prison  service,"  said  a 
voice,  "always.  From  the  beginning.  But  it's  only 
now  I'm  able  to  do  it." 

A  little  blond  creature  close  at  hand  suddenly  gave 
way  to  a  fit  of  hysterical  laughter,  and  caught  up  the 
end  of  it  with  a  sob. 

"Before  I  took  up  the  Suffrage,"  a  firm,  flat  voice 
remarked,  "I  could  scarcely  walk  up-stairs  without 
palpitations." 

Some  one  hidden  from  Ann  Veronica  appeared  to  be 
marshalling  the  assembly.  "We  have  to  get  in,  I 
think,"  said  a  nice  little  old  lady  in  a  bonnet  to  Ann 
Veronica,  speaking  with  a  voice  that  quavered  a  little. 
"My  dear,  can  you  see  in  this  light?  I  think  I  would 
like  to  get  in.  Which  is  C?" 

Ann  Veronica,  with  a  curious  sinking  of  the  heart, 
regarded  the  black  cavities  of  the  vans.  Their  doors 
stood  open,  and  placards  with  big  letters  indicated  the 

245 


ANN   VERONICA 

section  assigned  to  each.  She  directed  the  little  old 
woman  and  then  made  her  way  to  van  D.  A  young 
woman  with  a  white  badge  on  her  arm  stood  and  counted 
the  sections  as  they  entered  their  vans. 

"When  they  tap  the  roof,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  of 
authority,  "you  are  to  come  out.  You  will  be  opposite 
the  big  entrance  in  Old  Palace  Yard.  It's  the  public 
entrance.  You  are  to  make  for  that  and  get  into  the 
lobby  if  you  can,  and  so  try  and  reach  the  floor  of  the 
House,  crying  'Votes  for  Women!'  as  you  go." 

She  spoke  like  a  mistress  addressing  school-children. 

"Don't  bunch  too  much  as  you  come  out,"  she  added. 

"All  right?"  asked  the  man  with  the  light  eyelashes, 
suddenly  appearing  in  the  doorway.  He  waited  for  an 
instant,  wasting  an  encouraging  smile  in  the  imperfect 
light,  and  then  shut  the  doors  of  the  van,  leaving  the 
women  in  darkness.  .  .  . 

The  van  started  with  a  jerk  and  rumbled  on  its  way. 

"It's  like  Troy!"  said  a  voice  of  rapture.  "It's 
exactly  like  Troy!" 

§5 

So  Ann  Veronica,  enterprising  and  a  little  dubious  as 
ever,  mingled  with  the  stream  of  history  and  wrote  her 
Christian  name  upon  the  police-court  records  of  the 
land. 

But  out  of  a  belated  regard  for  her  father  she  wrote 
the  surname  of  some  one  else. 

Some  day,  when  the  rewards  of  literature  permit  the 
arduous  research  required,  the  Campaign  of  the  Women 
will  find  its  Carlyle,  and  the  particulars  of  that  mar- 

246 


THE  SUFFRAGETTES 

vellous  series  of  exploits  by  which  Miss  Brett  and  her 
colleagues  nagged  the  whole  Western  world  into  the 
discussion  of  women's  position  become  the  material  for 
the  most  delightful  and  amazing  descriptions.  At  pres- 
ent the  world  waits  for  that  writer,  and  the  confused 
record  of  the  newspapers  remains  the  only  resource  of 
the  curious.  WhenABe;  comes  he  will  do  that  raid  of 
the  pantechnicons  the  Justice  it  deserves;  he  will  picture 
the  orderly  evening  scene  about  the  Imperial  Legislature 
in  convincing  detail;  the  coming  and  going  of  cabs  and 
motor-cabs  and  broughams  through  the  chill,  damp 
evening  into  New  Palace  Yard,  the  reinforced  but  un- 
troubled and  unsuspecting  police  about  the  entries  of 
those  great  buildings  whose  square  and  panelled  Vic- 
torian Gothic  streams  up  from  the  glare  of  the  lamps 
into  the  murkiness  of  the  night;  Big  Ben  shining  over- 
head, an  unassailable  beacon,  and  the  incidental  traffic 
of  Westminster,  cabs,  carts,  and  glowing  omnibuses 
going  to  and  from  the  bridge.  About  the  Abbey  and 
Abingdon  Street  stood  the  outer  pickets  and  detach- 
ments of  the  police,  their  attention  all  directed  west- 
ward to  where  the  women  in  Caxton  Hall,  Westminster, 
hummed  like  an  angry  hive.  Squads  reached  to  the 
very  portal  of  that  centre  of  disturbance.  And  through 
all  these  defences  and  into  Old  Palace  Yard,  into  the 
very  vitals  of  the  defenders'  position,  lumbered  the  un- 
suspected vans. 

They  travelled  past  the  few  idle  sightseers  who  had 
braved  the  uninviting  evening  to  see  what  the  Suffra- 
gettes might  be  doing;  they  pulled  up  unchallenged 
within  thirty  yards  of  those  coveted  portals. 

And  then  they  disgorged. 

247 


ANN   VERONICA 

Were  I  a  painter  of  subject  pictures,  I  would  exhaust 
all  my  skill  in  proportion  and  perspective  and  atmosphere 
upon  the  august  seat  of  empire,  I  would  present  it  gray 
and  dignified  and  immense  and  respectable  beyond  any 
mere  verbal  description,  and  then,  in  vivid  black  and 
very  small,  I  would  put  in  those  valiantly  impertinent 
vans,  squatting  at  the  base  of  its  altituoles'and  pouring 
out  a  swift,  straggling  rush  of  ominous  little  black  ob- 
jects, minute  figures  of  determined  women  at  war  with 
the  universe.: 

Ann  Veronica  was  in  their  very  forefront. 

In  an  instant  the  expectant  calm  of  Westminster  was 
ended,  and  the  very  Speaker  in  the  chair  blenched  at  the 
sound  of  the  policemen's  whistles.  The  bolder  members 
in  the  House  left  their  places  to  go  lobbyward,  grinning. 
Others  pulled  hats  over  their  noses,  cowered  in  their  seats, 
and  feigned  that  all  was  right  with  the  woild.  In  Old 
Palace  Yard  everybody  ran.  They  either  ran  to  see  or 
ran  for  shelter.  Even  two  Cabinet  Ministers  took  to 
their  heels,  grinning  insincerely.  At  the  opening  of  the 
van  doors  and  the  emergence  into  the  fresh  air  Ann 
Veronica's  doubt  and  depression  gave  place  to  the  wildest 
exhilaration.  That  same  adventurousness  that  had 
"already  buoyed  her  through  -crises  that  would  have  over- 
whelmed any  normally  feminine  girl  with  shame  and 
horror  now  became  uppermost  again.  Before  her  was  a 
great  Gothic  portal.  Through  that  she  had  to  go. 

Past  her  shot  the  little  old  lady  in  the  bonnet,  running 
incredibly  fast,  but  otherwise  still  alertly  respectable, 
and  she  was  making  a  strange  threatening  sound  as  she 
ran,  such  as  one  would  use  in  driving  ducks  out  of  a 
garden — "  B-r-r-r-r-r — !"  arid  pawing  with  black-gloved 

248 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

iiands.  The  policemen  were  closing  in  fiom  the  sides  to 
intervene.  The  little  old  lady  struck  like  a  projectile 
upon  the  resounding  chest  of  the  foremost  of  these,  and 
then  Ann  Veronica  had  got  past  and  was  ascending  the 
steps. 

Then  most  horribly  she  was  clasped  about  the  waist 
from  behind  and  lifted  from  the  ground. 

At  that  a  new  element  poured  into  her  excitement,  an 
element  of  wild  disgust  and  terror.  She  had  never  ex- 
perienced anything  so  disagreeable  in  her  life  as  the  sense 
of  being  held  helplessly  off  her  feet.  She  screamed  in- 
voluntarily— she  had  never  in  her  life  screamed  before 
—and  then  she  began  to  wriggle  and  fight  like  a  fright- 
ened animal  against  the  men  who  were  holding  her. 

The  affair  passed  at  one  leap  from  a  spree  to  a  night- 
mare of  violence  and  disgust.  Her  hair  got  loose,  her 
hat  came  over  one  eye,  and  she  had  no  arm  free  to  replace 
it.  She  felt  she  must  suffocate  if  these  men  did  not  put 
her  down,  and  for  a  time  they  would  not  put  her 
down.  Then  with  an  indescribable  relief  her  feet 
were  on  the  pavement,  and  she  was  being  urged  along 
by  two  policemen,  who  were  gripping  her  wrists  in  an 
irresistible  expert  manner.  She  was  writhing  to  get  her 
hands  loose  and  found  herself  gasping  with  passionate 
violence,  "It's  damnable! — damnable!"  to  the  manifest 
disgust  of  the  fatherly  policeman  on  her  right. 

Then  they  had  released  "Her  arms  and  were  trying 
to  push  her  away.  "  You  be  off,  missie,"  said  the  father- 
ly policeman.  "This  ain't  no  place  for  you." 

He  pushed  her  a  dozen  yards  along  the  greasy  pave- 
ment with  flat,  well-trained  hands  that  there  seemed  to 
be  no  opposing.  Before  her  stretched  blank  spaces, 

249 


ANN   VERONICA 

dotted  with  running  people  coming  toward  her,  and 
below  them  railings  and  a  statue.     She  almost  sub- 
mitted to  this  ending  of  her  adventure.  •  But  at  the  word 
.'"home"  she  turned  again. 

""^Hr'won't  go  home,"  she  said;  "  I  won't  I"  and  she  evad- 
ed the  clutch  of  the  fatherly  policeman  and  tried  to  thrust 
herself  past  him  in  the  direction  of  that  big  portal. 
"Steady  on!"  he  cried. 

A  diversion  was  created  by  the  violent  struggles  of  the 
little  old  lady.  She  seemed  to  be  endowed  with  super- 
human strength.  A  knot  of  three  policemen  in  conflict 
with  her  staggered  toward  Ann  Veronica's  attendants 
and  distracted  their  attention.  "I  will  be  arrestedl 
I  won't  go  home!"  the  little  old  lady  was  screaming  over 
and  over  again.  They  put  her  down,  and  she  leaped  at 
them;  she  smote  a  helmet  to  the  ground. 

"You'll  have  to  take  her!"  shouted  an  inspector  on 
horseback,  and  she  echoed  his  cry:  "  You'll  have  to  take 
me!"  They  seized  uoon  her  and  lifted  her,  and  she 
screamed.  Ann  Veronica  became  violently  excited  at 
the  sight.  "  You  cowards!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "  put  her 
down!"  and  tore  herself  from  a  detaining  hand  and 
battered  with  her  fists  upon  the  big  red  ear  and  blue 
/shoulder  of  the  policeman  who  held  the  little  old  lady. 

So  Ann  Veronica  also  was  arrested. 

And  then  came  the  vile  experience  of  being  forced  and 
borne  along  the  street  to  the  police-station.  Whatever 
anticipation  Ann  Veronica  had  formed  of  this  vanished 
in  the  reality.  Presently  she  was  going  through  a  sway- 
ing, noisy  crowd,  whose  faces  grinned  and  stared  pitiless- 
ly in  the  light  of  the  electric  standards.  "  Go  it,  miss!" 
cried  one.  "Kick  aht  at  'em!"  though,  indeed,  she 

250 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

went  now  with  Christian  meekness,  resenting  only  the 
thrusting  policemen's  hands.  Several  people  in  the 
crowd  seemed  to  be  fighting.  Insulting  cries  became 
frequent  and  various,  but  for  the  most  part  she  could 
not  understand  what  was  said.  "  Who'll  mind  the  baby 
nar?"  was  one  of  the  night's  inspirations,  and  very  fre- 
quent. A  lean  young  man  in  spectacles  pursued  her 
for  some  time,  crying  "Courage!  Courage!"  Somebody 
threw  a  dab  of  mud  at  her,  and  some  of  it  got  down  her 
neck.  Immeasurable  disgust  possessed  her.  She  felt 
draggled  and  insulted  beyond  redemption.  She  could 
not  hide  her  face.  She  attempted  by  a  sheer  act  of  will 
to  end  the  scene,  to  will  herself  out  of  it  anywhere.  She 
had  a  horrible  glimpse  of  the  once  nice  little  old  lady 
being  also  borne  stationward,  still  faintly  battling  and 
very  muddy — one  lock  of  grayish  hair  straggling  over 
her  neck,  her  face  scared,  white,  but  triumphant.  Her 
bonnet  dropped  off  and  was  trampled  into  the  gutter. 
A  little  Cockney  recovered  it,  and  made  ridiculous  at- 
tempts to  get  to  her  and  replace  it. 

"You  must  arrest  me!"  she  gasped,  breathlessly,  in- 
sisting insanely  on  a  point  already  carried;  "you  shall!" 

The  police-station  at  the  end  seemed  to  Ann  Veronica 
like  a  refuge  from  unnamable  disgraces.  She  hesitated 
about  her  name,  and,  being  prompted,  gave  it  at  last 
as  Ann  Veronica  Smith,  IO;A,  Chancery  Lane.  .  .  . 

Indignation  carried  her  through  that  night,  that 
men  and  the  world  could  so  entreat  her.  The  arrested 
women  were  herded  in  a  passage  of  the  Panton  Street 
Police-station  that  opened  upon  a  cell  too  unclean  for 
occupation,  and  most  of  them  spent  the  night  standing. 
Hot  coffee  and  cakes  were  sent  in  to  them  in  the  morning 

'7  2$I 


ANN    VERONICA 

by  some  intelligent  sympathizer,  or  she  would  have 
starved  all  day.  Submission  to  the  inevitable  carried 
her  through  the  circumstances  of  her  appearance  before 
the  magistrate. 

He  was  no  doubt  doing  '\is  best  to  express  the  atti- 
tude of  society  toward  these  wearily  heroic  defendants, 
but  he  seemed  to  be  merely  rude  and  unfair  to  Ann 
Veronica.  He  was  not,  it  seemed,  the  proper  stipendiary 
at  all,  and  there  had  been  some  demur  to  his  juris- 
diction that  had  ruffled  him.  He  resented  being  re- 
garded as  irregular.  He  felt  he  was  human  wisdom 
prudentially  interpolated.  .  .  .  "You  silly  wimmin," 
he  said  over  and  over  again  throughout  the  hearing, 
plucking  at  his  blotting-pad  with  busy  hands.  "You 
silly  creatures!  Ugh!  Fie  upon  you!"  The  court  was 
crowded  with  people,  for  the  most  part  supporters  and 
admirers  of  the  defendants,  and  the  man  with  the  light 
eyelashes  was  conspicuously  active  and  omnipresent. 

Ann  Veronica's  appearance  was  brief  and  undis- 
tinguished. She  had  nothing  to  say  for  herself.  She 
was  guided  into  the  dock  and  prompted  by  a  helpful 
police  inspector.  She  was  aware  of  the  body  of  the  court, 
of  clerks  seated  at  a  black  table  littered  with  papers, 
of  policemen  standing  about  stiffly  with  expressions  of 
conscious  integrity,  and  a  murmuring  background  of 
the  heads  and  shoulders  of  spectators  close  behind  her. 
On  a  high  chair  behind  a  raised  counter  the  stipendiary's 
substitute  regarded  her  malevolently  over  his  glasses. 
A  disagreeable  young  man,  with  red  hair  and  a  loose 
mouth,  seated  at  the  reporter's  table,  was  only  too 
manifestly  sketching  her. 

She  was  interested  by  the  swearing  of  the  witnesses, 

252 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

the  kissing  of  the  book  struck  her  as  particularly  odd, 
and  then  the  policemen  gave  their  evidence  in  staccato 
jerks  and  stereotyped  phrases. 

"Have  you  anything  to  ask  the  witness?"  asked  the 
helpful  inspector. 

The  ribald  demons  that  infested  the  back  of  Ann 
Veronica's  mind  urged  various  facetious  interrogations 
upon  her,  as,  for  example,  Where  the  witness  had  acquired 
his  prose  style.'  She  controlled  herself,  and  answered 
meekly,  "No." 

"Well,  Ann  Veronica  Smith,"  the  magistrate  re- 
marked when  the  case  was  all  before  him,  "you're 
a  good-looking,  strong,  respectable  gell,  and  it's  a 
pity  you  silly  young  wimmin  can't  find  something 
better  to  do  with  your  exuberance.  Two-and-twenty! 
I  can't  imagine  what  your  parents  can  be  thinking 
about  to  let  you  get  into  these  scrapes." 

Ann  Veronica's  mind  was  filled  with  confused  un- 
utterable replies. 

"You  are  persuaded  to  come  and  take  part  in  these 
outrageous  proceedings — many  of  you,  I  am  convinced, 
have  no  idea  whatever  of  their  nature.  I  don't  suppose 
you  could  tell  me  even  the  derivation  of  suffrage  if  I 
asked  you.  No!  not  even  the  derivation!  But  the 
fashion's  been  set  and  in  it  you  must  be." 

The  men  at  the  reporter's  table  lifted  their  eye- 
brows, smiled  faintly,  and  leaned  back  to  watch  how 
she  took  her  scolding.  One  with  the  appearance  of 
a  bald  little  gnome  yawned  agonizingly.  They  had 
got  all  this  down  already — they  heard  the  substance 
of  it  now  for  the  fourteenth  time.  The  stipendiary 
would  have  done  it  all  very  differently, 

253 


ANN    VERONICA 

She  found  presently  she  was  out  of  the  dock  and 
confronted  with  the  alternative  of  being  bound  over 
in  one  surety  for  the  sum  of  forty  pounds — whatever 
that  might  mean — or  a  month's  imprisonment.  ' 'Second 
class,"  said  some  one,  but  first  and  second  were  all 
alike  to  her.  She  elected  to  go  to  prison. 

At  last,  after  a  long  rumbling  journey  in  a  stuffy 
windowless  van,  she  reached  Canongate  Prison — for 
Holloway  had  its  quota  already.  It  was  bad  luck  to 
go  to  Canongate. 

Prison  was  beastly.  Prison  was  bleak  without 
spaciousness,  and  pervaded  by  a  faint,  oppressive  smell; 
and  she  had  to  wait  two  hours  in  the  sullenly  defiant 
company  of  two  unclean  women  thieves  before  a  cell 
could  be  assigned  to  her.  Its  dreariness,  like  the 
filthiness  of  the  police  cell,  was  a  discovery  for  her. 
She  had  imagined  that  prisons  were  white-tiled  places, 
reeking  of  lime-wash  and  immaculately  sanitary. 
Instead,  they  appeared  to  be  at  the  hygienic  level  of 
tramps*  lodging-houses.  She  was  bathed  in  turbid 
water  that  had  already  been  used.  She  was  not  allowed 
to  bathe  herself:  another  prisoner,  with  a  privileged 
manner,  washed  her.  Conscientious  objectors  to  that 
process  are  not  permitted,  she  found,  in  Canongate. 
Her  hair  was  washed  for  her  also.  Then  they  dressed 
her  in  a  dirty  dress  of  coarse  serge  and  a  cap,  and  took 
away  her  own  clothes.  The  dress  came  to  her  only  too 
manifestly  unwashed  from  its  former  wearer;  even  the 
under-linen  they  gave  her  seemed  unclean.  Horrible 
memories  of  things  seen  beneath  the  microscope  of 
the  baser  forms  of  life  crawled  across  her  mind  and 
set  her  shuddering  with  imagined  irritations.  She 

254 


THE   SUFFRAGETTES 

sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed — the  wardress  was  too  busy 
with  the  flood  of  arrivals  that  day  to  discover  that  she 
had  it  down — and  her  skin  was  shivering  from  the  con- 
tact of  these  garments.  She  surveyed  accommodation 
that  seemed  at  first  merely  austere,  and  became  more 
and  more  manifestly  inadequate  as  the  moments  fled  by. 
She  meditated  profoundly  through  several  enormous 
cold  hours  on  all  that  had  happened  and  all  that  she 
had  done  since  the  swirl  of  the  suffrage  movement  had 
submerged  her  personal  affairs.  .  .  . 

Very  slowly  emerging  out  of  a  phase  of  stupefaction, 
these  personal  affairs  and  her  personal  problem  resumed 
possession  of  her  mind.  She  had  imagined  she  had 
<irojK»ed  them  altogether. 


CHAPTER    THE    ELEVENTH 

THOUGHTS   IN   PRISON 
§   I 

THE  first  night  in  prison  she  found  it  impossible  to 
sleep.  The  bed  was  hard  beyond  any  experience 
of  hers,  the  bed-clothes  coarse  and  insufficient,  the  cell 
at  once  cold  and  stuffy.  The  little  grating  in  the  door, 
the  sense  of  constant  inspection,  worried  her.  She  kept 
opening  her  eyes  and  looking  at  it.  She  was  fatigued 
physically  and  mentally,  and  neither  mind  nor  body 
could  rest.  She  became  aware  that  at  regular  intervals 
a  light  flashed  upon  her  face  and  a  bodiless  eye  regarded 
her,  and  this,  as  the  night  wore  on,  became  a  torment. . . . 
Capes  came  back  into  her  mind.  He  haunted  a  state 
between  hectic  dreaming  and  mild  delirium,  and  she 
found  herself  talking  aloud  to  him.  All  through  the 
night  an  entirely  impossible  and  monumental  Capes  con- 
fronted her,  and  she  argued  with  him  about  men  and 
women.  She  visualized  him  as  in  a  policeman's  uni- 
form and  quite  impassive.  On  some  insane  score  she 
fancied  she  had  to  state  her  case  in  verse.  '  "We  are 
the  music  and  you  are  the  instrument,"  she  said;  "we 
are  verse  and  you  are  prose. 

256 


THOUGHTS   IN    PRISON 

;  /•}    v"For  men  have  reason,  women  rhyme; 

C     A  man  scores  always,  all  the  time." 
x^T—^"' 

This  couplet  sprang  into  her  mind  from  nowhere,  and 
immediately  begot  an  endless  series  of  similar  couplets 
that  she  began  to  compose  and  address  to  Capes.  They 
came  teeming  distressfully  through  her  aching  brain: 

**A  man  can  kick,  his  skirts  don't  tear; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere. 

"  His  dress  for  no  man  lays  a  snare; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere. 

"  For  hats  that  fail  and  hats  that  flare; 
Toppers  their  universal  wear; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere. 

"Men's  waists  are  neither  here  nor  there; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere. 

"  A  man  can  manage  without  hair; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere. 

"There  are  no  males  at  men  to  stare; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere. 

"And  children  must  we  women  bear — 

"Oh,  damn!"  she  cried,  as  the  hundred-and-first 
couplet  or  so  presented  itself  in  her  unwilling  brain. 

For  a  time  she  worried  about  that  compulsory  bath 
and  cutaneous  diseases. 

Then  she  fell  into  a  fever  of  remorse  for  the  habit  of 
bad  language  she  had  acquired. 

14  A  man  can  smoke,  a  man  can  swear; 
A  man  scores  always,  everywhere." 

257 


ANN   VERONICA 

She  rolled  over  on  her  face,  and  stuffed  her  ringers  in 
her  ears  to  shut  out  the  rhythm  from  her  mind.  She 
lay  still  for  a  long  time,  and  her  mind  resumed  at  a  more 
tolerable  pace.  She  found  herself  talking  to  Capes  in 
an  undertone  of  rational  admission. 

"  There  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  lady-like  theory 
after  all,"  she  admitted.  "Women  ought  to  be  gentle 
and  submissive  persons,  strong  only  in  virtue  and  in 
resistance  to  evil  compulsion.  Myxdear — I  can  call  you 
that  here,  anyhow — I  know  that.  /The  Victorians  over- 
did it  a  little,  I  admit.  Their  idea  of  maidenly  inno- 
cence was  just  a  blank  white — the  sort  of  flat  white 
that  doesn't  shine.  ;  But  that  doesn't  alter  the  fact  that 
there  is  innocence.  And  I've  read,  and  thought,  and 
guessed,  and  looked — until  my  innocence — it's  smirched. 

"Smirched!  .  .  . 

"  You  see,  dear,  one  is  passionately  anxious  for  some- 
thing— what  is  it?  One  wants  to  be  clean.  You  want 
me  to  be  clean.  You  would  want  me  to  be  clean,  if  you 
gave  me  a  thought,  that  is.  ... 

"  I  wonder  if  you  give  me  a  thought.  .  .  . 

"I'm  not  a  good  woman.  I  don't  mean  I'm  not  a 
good  woman — I  mean  that  I'm  not  a  good  woman.  My 
poor  brain"  is  so  mixed,  dear,  I  hardly  know  what  I  am 
saying.  I  mean  I'm  not  a  good  specimen  of  a  woman. 
I've  got  a  streak  of  male./  Things  happen  to  women — 
proper  women — and  all  they  have  to  do  is  to  take  them 
well.  They've  just  got  to  keep  white.  But  I'm  always 
trying  to  make  things  happen.  And  I  get  myself 
dirty 

{"  It's  all  dirt  that  washes  off,  dear,  but  it's  dirt. 

"The  white  unaggressive  woman  who  corrects  and 

258 


THOUGHTS   IN    PRISON 

nurses  and  serves,  and  is  worshipped  and  betrayed — 
the  martyr-queen  of  men,  the  white  mother.  .  .  .  You 
can't  do  that  sort  of  thing  unless  you  do  it  over  religion, 
and  there's  no  religion  in  me — of  that  sort — worth  a  rap. 

"  I'm  not  gentle.     Certainly  not  a  gentlewoman. 

"I'm  not  coarse — no!  But  I've  got  no  purity  of 
mind — no  real  purity  of  mind.  A  good  woman's  mind 
has  angels  with  flaming  swords  at  the  portals  to  keep 
out  fallen  thoughts.  .  .  . 

"  I  wonder  if  there  are  any  good  women  really. 

"I  wish  I  didn't  swear.  I  do  swear.  It  began  as  a 
joke.  ...  It  developed  into  a  sort  of  secret  and  private 
bad  manners.  It's  got  to  be  at  last  like  tobacco-ash 
over  all  my  sayings  and  doings.  .  ,  . 

"'Go  it,  missie,'  they  said;  'kick  aht!' 

"I  swore  at  that  policeman — and  disgusted  him. 
Disgusted  him! 

"  For  men  policemen  never  blush; 
A  man  in  all  things  scores  so  much.  .  .  . 

"Damn!  Things  are  getting  plainer.  It  must  be 
the  dawn  creeping  in. 

"  Now  here  hath  been  dawning  another  blue  day; 
I'm  just  a  poor  woman,  please  take  it  away. 

"Oh,  sleep!     Sleep!    Sleep!    Sleep!" 


§   2 

"Now,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  after  the  half-hour  of 
exercise,  and  sitting  on  the  uncomfortable  wooden  seat 

259 


ANN   VERONICA 

without  a  back  that  was  her  perch  by  day,  "it's  no 
good  staying  here  in  a  sort  of  maze.  I've  got  nothing 
to  do  for  a  month  but  think.  I  may  as  well  think.  I 
ought  to  be  able  to  think  things  out. 

"How  shall  I  put  the  question?  What  am  I?  What 
have  I  got  to  do  with  myself?  .  .  . 

"I  wonder  if  many  people  have  thought  things  out? 

"Are  we  all  just  seizing  hold  of  phrases  and  obeying 
moods  ? 

"It  wasn't  so  with  old-fashioned  people,  they  knew 
right  from  wrong;  they  had  a  clear-cut,  religious  faith 
that  seemed  to  explain  everything  and  give  a  rule  for 
everything.  We  haven't.  I  haven't,  anyhow.  And 
it's  no  good  pretending  there  is  one  when  there  isn't.  .  .  . 

I  suppose  I  believe  in  God Never  really  thought  about 

Him — people  don't.  ...  I  suppose  my  creed  is,  '  I  believe 
rather  indistinctly  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  sub- 
stratum of  the  evolutionary  process,  and,  in  a  vein  of 
vague  sentimentality  that  doesn't  give  a  datum  for  any- 
thing at  all,  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son.'  .  .  . 

"It's  no  sort  of  good,  Ann  Veronica,  pretending  one 
does  believe  when  one  doesn't.  .  .  . 

"And  as  for  praying  for  faith — this  sort  of  monologue 
is  about  as  near  as  any  one  of  my  sort  ever  gets  to  prayer. 
Aren't  I  asking — asking  plainly  now?  .  .  . 

"We've  all  been  mixing  our  ideas,  and  we've  got  in- 
tellectual hot  coppers — every  blessed  one  of  us.  ... 

"A  confusion  of  motives — that's  what  I  am!  .  .  . 

"There  is  this  absurd  craving  for  Mr.  Capes — the 
'Capes  crave,'  they  would  call  it  in  America.  Why  do  I 
want  him  so  badly?  Why  do  I  want  him,  and  think 
about  him,  and  fail  to  get  away  from  him  ? 

260 


THOUGHTS   IN    PRISON 

"It  isn't  all  of  me. 

1  "The  first  person  you  love,  Ann  Veronica,  is  yourself 
— get  hold  of  that!  The  soul  you  have  to  save  is  Ann 
Veronica's  soul.  ..." 

She  knelt  upon  the  floor  of  her  cell  and  clasped  her 
hands,  and  remained  for  a  long  time  in  silence. 

"Oh,  God!"  she  said  at  last;  "how  I  wish  I  had  been 
taught  to  pray!" 

§3 

She  had  some  idea  of  putting  these  subtle  and  difficult 
issues  to  the  chaplain  when  she  was  warned  of  his  advent. 
But  she  had  not  reckoned  with  the  etiquette  of  Canon- 
gate.  She  got  up,  as  she  had  been  told  to  do,  at  his 
appearance,  and  he  amazed  her  by  sitting  down,  accord- 
ing to  custom,  on  her  stool.  He  still  wore  his  hat,  to 
show  that  the  days  of  miracles  and  Christ  being  civil  to 
sinners  are  over  forever.  She  perceived  that  his  coun- 
tenance was  only  composed  by  a  great  effort,  his  features 
severely  compressed.  He  was  ruffled,  and  his  ears  were 
red,  no  doubt  from  some  adjacent  controversy.  He 
classified  her  as  he  seated  himself. 

"Another  young  woman,  I  suppose,"  he  said,  "who 
knows  better  than  her  Maker  about  her  place  in  the 
world.  Have  you  anything  to  ask  me?" 

Ann  Veronica  readjusted  her  mind  hastily.  Her  back 
stiffened.  She  produced  from  the  depths  of  her  pride  the 
ugly  investigatory  note  of  the  modern  district  visitor. 
"Are  you  a  special  sort  of  clergyman,"  she  said,  after  a 
pause,  and  looking  down  her  nose  at  him,  "or  do  you  go 
to  the  Universities?" 

261 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Oh!"  he  said,  profoundly. 

He  panted  for  a  moment  with  unuttered  replies,  and 
then,  with  a  scornful  gesture,  got  up  and  left  the  cell. 

So  that  Ann  Veronica  was  not  able  to  get  the  expert 
advice  she  certainly  needed  upon  her  spiritual  state. 


After  a  day  or  so  she  thought  more  steadily.  She 
found  herself  in  a  phase  of  violent  reaction  against  the 
suffrage  movement,  a  phase  greatly  promoted  by  one  of 
those  unreasonable  objections  people  of  Ann  Veronica's 
temperament  take  at  times — to  the  girl  in  the  next  cell 
to  her  own.  She  was  a  large,  resilient  girl,  with  a  foolish 
smile,  a  still  more  foolish  expression  of  earnestness,  and 
a  throaty  contralto  voice.  She  was  noisy  and  hilarious 
and  enthusiastic,  and  her  hair  was  always  abominably 
done.  In  the  chapel  she  sang  with  an  open-lunged  gusto 
that  silenced  Ann  Veronica  altogether,  and  in  the 
exercising-yard  slouched  round  with  carelessly  dispersed 
feet.  Ann  Veronica  decided  that  "hoydenish  ragger" 
was  the  only  phrase  to  express  her.  She  was  always 
breaking  rules,  whispering  asides,  intimating  signals. 
She  became  at  times  an  embodiment  for  Ann  Veronica 
of  all  that  made  the  suffrage  movement  defective  and 
unsatisfying. 

She  was  always  initiating  petty  breaches  of  discipline. 
Her  greatest  exploit  was  the  howling  before  the  mid-day 
meal.  This  was  an  imitation  of  the  noises  made  by  the 
carnivora  at  the  Zoological  Gardens  at  feeding-time; 
the  idea  was  taken  up  by  prisoner  after  prisoner  until  the 

262 


THOUGHTS   IN    PRISON 

whole  place  was  alive  with  barkings,  yappings,  roarings, 
pelican  chatterings,  and  feline  yowlings,  interspersed 
with  shrieks  of  hysterical  laughter.  To  many  in  that 
crowded  solitude  it  came  as  an  extraordinary  relief. 
It  was  better  even  than  the  hymn-singing.  But  it 
annoyed  Ann  Veronica. 

"Idiots!"  she  said,  when  she  heard  this  pandemonium, 
and  with  particular  reference  to  this  young  lady  with  the 
throaty  contralto  next  door.  "Intolerable  idiots!  ..." 

It  took  some  days  for  this  phase  to  pass,  and  it  left 
some  scars  and  something  like  a  decision.  "Violence 
won't  do  it,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "Begin  violence,  and 
the  woman  goes  under.  .  .  . 

"But  all  the  rest  of  our  case  is  right.  .  .  .  Yes." 

As  the  long,  solitary  days  wore  on,  Ann  Veronica  found 
a  number  of  definite  attitudes  and  conclusions  in  her 
mind. 

One  of  these  was  a  classification  of  women  into  women 
who  are  and  women  who  are  not  hostile  to  men.  "The 
real  reason  why  I  am  out  of  place  here,"  she  said,  "is 
because  I  like  men.  I  can  talk  with  them.  I've  never 
found  them  hostile.  I've  got  no  (feminine  class  feeling) 
I  don't  want  any  laws  or  freedoms  to  protect  me  from  a 
man  like  Mr.  Capes.  I  know  that  in  my  heart  I  would 
take  whatever  he  gave.  .  .  . 

"A  woman  wants  a  proper  alliance  with  a  man,  a  man 
who  is  better  stuff  than  herself.  She  wants  that  and 
needs  it  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world.  It  may 
not  be  just,  it  may  not  be  fair,  but  things  are  so.  It  isn't 
law,  nor  custom,  nor  masculine  violence  settled  that. 
It  is  just  how  things  happen  to  be.  She  wants  to  be 
free — she  wants  to  be  legally  and  economically  free,  so  as 

263 


ANN   VERONICA 

not  to  be  subject  to  the  wrong  man;  but  only  God,  who 
made  the  world,  can  alter  things  to  prevent  her  being 
slave  to  the  right  one. 

"And  if  she  can't  have  the  right  one? 
"We've  developed  such  a  quality  of  preference!" 
She  rubbed  her  knuckles  into  her  forehead.     "Oh, 
but  life  is  difficult !' '  she  groaned.     ' '  When  you  loosen  the 
tangle  in  one  place  you  tie  a  knot  in  another.  .  .  .  Before 
there  is  any  change,  any  real  change,  I  shall  be  dead — 
dead — dead  and  finished — two  hundred  years!  ..." 


§5 

One  afternoon,  while  everything  was  still,  the  ward- 
ress heard  her  cry  out  suddenly  and  alarmingly,  and 
with  great  and  unmistakable  passion,  "Why  in  the 
name  of  goodness  did  I  burn  that  twenty  pounds?" 


56 

She  sat  regarding  her  dinner.  The  meat  was  coarse 
and  disagreeably  served. 

"  I  suppose  some  one  makes  a  bit  on  the  food,"  she 
said.  .  .  . 

"  One  has  such  ridiculous  ideas  of  the  wicked  common 
people  and  the  beautiful  machinery  of  order  that  ropes 
them  in.  And  here  are  these  places,  full  of  contagion! 

"Of  course,  this  is  the  real  texture  of  life;  this  is 
what  we  refined  secure  people  forget.  We  think  the 
whole  thing  is  straight  and  noble  at  bottom,  and  it 

264 


THOUGHTS    IN    PRISON 

isn't.  We  think  if  we  just  defy  the  friends  we  have 
and  go  out  into  the  world  everything  will  become  easy 
and  splendid.  One  doesn't  realize  that  even  the  sort 
of  civilization  one  has  at  Morningside  Park  is  held 
together  with  difficulty.  By  policemen  one  mustn't 
shock.  .  .  . 

"  This  isn't  a  world  for  an  innocent  girl  to  walk  about 
in.  It's  a  world  of  dirt  and  skin  diseases  and  parasites. 
It's  a  world  in  which  the  law  can  be  a  stupid  pig  and 
the  police-stations  dirty  dens.  One  wants  helpers  and 
protectors — and  clean  water. 

"Am  I  becoming  reasonable  or  am  I  being  tamed? 

"  I'm  simply  discovering  that  life  is  many-sided  and 
complex  and  puzzling.  I  thought  one  had  only  to  take 
it  by  the  throat. 

It  hasn't  got  a  throat!" 

§  7 

One  day  the^idea  of  self-sacrific4_came  into  her  head, 
and  she  made,  she  thought,  some  important  moral  dis- 
coveries. 

It  came  with  an  extreme  effect  of  re-discovery,  a  re- 
markable novelty.  "What  have  I  been  all  this  time?" 
she  asked  herself,  and  answered,  "Just  stark  egotism, 
crude  assertion  of  Ann  Veronica,  without  a  modest  rag 
of  religion  or  discipline  or  respect  for  authority  to  cover 
me!" 

It  seemed  to  her  as  though  she  had  at  last  found  the 
touchstone  of  conduct.  She  perceived  she  had  never 
really  thought  of  any  one  but  herself  in  all  her  acts  and 
plans.  Even  Capes  had  been  for  her  merely  an  excitant 

265 


ANN    VERONICA 

to  passionate  love — a  mere  idol  at  whose  feet  one  could 
enjoy  imaginative  wallowings.  She  had  set  out  to  get 
a  beautiful  life,  a  free,  untrammelled  life,  self-develop- 
ment, without  counting  the  cost  either  for  herself  or 
others. 

"I  have  hurt  my  father,"  she  said;  "I  have  hurt  my 
aunt.  I  have  hurt  and  snubbed  poor  Teddy.  I've 
made  no  one  happy.  I  deserve  pretty  much  what  I've 
got.  .  .  . 

"  If  only  because  of  the  way  one  hurts  others  if  one 
kicks  loose  and  free,  one  has  to  submit.  .  .  . 

"Broken-in  people!  I  suppose  the  world  is  just  all 
egotistical  children  and  broken-in  people. 

"  Your  little  flag  of  pride  must  flutter  down  with  the 
rest  of  them,  Ann  Veronica.  .  .  . 

"  Compromise — and  kindness. 

"Compromise  and  kindness. 

"  "W  no  are  you  thai  the  wona  should  lie  down  at  your 
feet? 

"You've  got  to  be  a  decent  citizen,  Ann  Veronica. 
Take  your  half  loaf  with  the  others.  You  mustn't  go 
clawing  after  a  man  that  doesn't  belong  to  you — that 
isn't  even  interested  in  you.  That's  one  thing  clear. 

"You've  got  to  take  the  decent  reasonable  way. 
You've  got  to  adjust  yourself  to  the  people  God  has  set 
about  you.  Every  one  else  does." 

She  thought  more  and  more  along  that  line.  There 
was  no  reason  why  she  shouldn't  be  Capes'  friend.  He 
did  like  her,  anyhow;  he  was  always  pleased  to  be 
with  her.  There  was  no  reason  why  she  shouldn't 
be  his  restrained  and  dignified  friend.  After  all,  that 
was  life.  Nothing  was  given  away,  and  no  one  came 

266 


IN    PRISON 

so  rich  to  the  stall  as  to  command  all  that  it  had  to  offer. 
Every  one  has  to  make  a  deal  with  the  world. 

It  would  be  very  good  to  be  Capes'  friend. 

She  might  be  able  to  go  on  with  biology,  possibly 
even  work  upon  the  same  questions  that  he  dealt 
with.  .  .  . 

Perhaps  her  granddaughter  might  marry  his  grand- 
son. .  .  . 

It  grew  clear  to  her  that  throughout  all  her  wild  raid 
for  independence  she  had  done  nothing  for  anybody, 
and  many  people  had  done  things  for  her.  She  thought 
of  her  aunt  and  that  purse  that  was  dropped  on  the 
table,  and  of  many  troublesome  and  ill-requited  kind- 
nesses; she  thought  of  the  help  of  the  Widgetts,  of 
Teddy's  admiration;  she  thought,  with  a  new-born 
charity,  of  her  father,  of  Manning's  conscientious  un- 
selfishness, of  Miss  Miniver's  devotion. 

"  And  for  me  it  has  been  Pride  and  Pride  and  Pride ! 

"  I  am  the  ^rjodigal.,daughiej?.  I  will  arise  and  go  to 
my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him — 

"  I  suppose  pride  and  self-assertion  are  sin  ?  Sinned 
against  heaven —  Yes,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven 
and  before  thee.  .  .  . 

"Poor  old  daddy!  I  wonder  if  he'll  spend  much  on 
the  fatted  calf?  .  .  . 

"The  wrappered  life — discipline!  One  comes  to  that 
at  last.  I  begin  to  understand  Jane_Austen  and  chintz 
covers  and  decency  and  refinement  and  all  the  rest  of 
it.  One  puts  gloves  on  one's  gieedy  fingers.  One 
learns  to  sit  up.  ... 

"  And  somehow  or  other,"  she  added,  after  a  long  in- 
terval, "  I  must  pay  Mr.  Ramage  back  his  forty  pounds." 
18  267 


\ 


CHAPTER    THE   TWELFTH 

ANN    VERONICA    PUTS    THINGS    IN    ORDER 
§    I 

ANN   VERONICA    made    a    strenuous    attempt    to 
carry   out   her   good   resolutions.     She   meditated 
long  and  carefully  upon  her  letter  to  her  father  before 
she  wrote  it,  and  gravely  and  deliberately  again  before 
she  despatched  it. 

"Mv  DEAR  FATHER,"  she  wrote, — "7  have  been  think- 
ing hard  about  everything  since  I  was  sent  to  this  prison. 
All  these  experiences  have  taught  me  a  great  deal  about 
life  and  realities.  I  see  that  compromise  is  more  neces- 
sary to  life  than  I  ignorantly  supposed  it  to  be,  and  I  have 
been  trying  to  get  Lord  Morley's  book  on  that  subject,  but 
it  does  not  appear  to  be  available  in  the  prison  library, 
and  the  chaplain  seems  to  regard  him  as  an  undesirable 
writer." 

At  this  point  she  had  perceived  that  she  was  drifting 
from  her  subject. 

"7  must  read  him  when  I  come  out.  But  I  see  very 
clearly  that  as  things  are  a  daughter  is  necessarily  depend- 

268 


ANN    PUTS   THINGS   IN    ORDER 

ent  on  her  father  and  bound  while  she  is  in  that  position 
to  live  harmoniously  with  his  ideals." 

"  Bit  starchy,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  altered  the 
key  abruptly.  Her  concluding  paragraph  was,  on  the 
whole,  perhaps,  hardly  starchy  enough. 

"Really,  daddy,  I  am  sorry  for  all  I  have  done  to  put 
you  out.  May  I  come  home  and  try  to  be  a  better  daughter 
to  you? 

"ANN  VERONICA." 


§   2 

Her  aunt  came  to  meet  her  outside  Canongate,  and, 
being  a  little  confused  between  what  was  official  and 
what  was  merely  a  rebellious  slight  upon  our  national 
justice^  found  herself  involved  in  a  triumphal  procession 
to  the:  Vindicator  Vegetarian  Restaurant  ,Vnd  was  specifi- 
cally and  personally  cheered  by  a  smallj  shabby  crowd 
outside  that  rendezvous.  They  decided  quite  audibly, 
"  She's  an  Old  Dear,  anyhow.  Voting  wouldn't  do  no 
'arm  to  'er."  She  was  on  the  very  verge  of  a  vege- 
tarian meal  before  she  recovered  her  head  again.  Obey- 
ing some  fine  instinct,  she  had  come  to  the  prison  in  a 
dark  veil,  but  she  had  pushed  this  up  to  kiss  Ann  Ve- 
ronica and  never  drawn  it  down  again.  Eggs  were 
procured  for  her,  and  she  sat  out  the  subsequent  emo- 
tions and  eloquence  with  the  dignity  becoming  an  in- 
jured lady  of  good  family.  The  quiet  encounter  and 
home-coming  Ann  Veronica  and  she  had  contemplated 
was  entirely  disorganized  by  this  misadventure;  there 

269 


ANN    VERONICA 

were  no  adequate  explanations,  and  after  they  had 
settled  things  at  Ann  Veronica's  lodgings,  they  reached 
home  in  the  early  afternoon  estranged  and  depressed, 
with  headaches  and  the  trumpet  voice  of  the  indomitable 
Kitty  Brett  still  ringing  in  their  ears. 

"Dreadful  women,  my  dear!"  said  Miss  Stanley. 
"  And  some  of  them  quite  pretty  and  well  dressed.  No 
need  to  do  such  things.  We  must  never  let  your  father 
know  we  went.  Why  ever  did  you  let  me  get  into  that 
wagonette?" 

"  I  thought  we  had  to,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  who  had 
also  been  a  little  under  the  compulsion  of  the  marshals 
of  the  occasion.  "It  was  very  tiring." 

"  We  will  have  some  tea  in  the  drawing-room  as  soon 
as  ever  we  can — and  I  will  take  my  things  off.  I  don't 
think  I  shall  ever  care  for  this  bonnet  again.  We'll 
have  some  buttered  toast.  Your  poor  cheeks  are  quite 
sunken  and  hollow.  .  .  ." 

§3 

When  Ann  Veronica  found  herself  in  her  father's  study 
that  evening  it  seemed  to  her  for  a  moment  as  though 
all  the  events  of  the  past  six  months  had  been  a  dream. 
The  big  gray  spaces  of  London,  the  shop-lit,  greasy, 
shining  streets,  had  become  very  remote;  the  biological 
laboratory  with  its  work  and  emotions,  the  meetings 
and  discussions,  the  rides  in  hansoms  with  Ramage, 
were  like  things  in  a  book  read  and  closed.  The  study 
seemed  absolutely  unaltered;  there  was  still  the  same 
lamp  with  a  little  chip  out  of  the  shade,  still  the  same 
gas  fire,  still  the  same  bundle  of  blue  and  white  papers, 

270 


PUTS   THINGS   IN   ORDER 

it  seemed,  with  the  same  pink  tape  about  them,  at  the 
elbow  of  the  arm-chair,  still  the  same  father.  He  sat  in 
much  the  same  attitude,  and  she  stood  just  as  she  had 
stood  when  he  told  her  she  could  not  go  to  the  Fadden 
Dance.  Both  had  dropped  the  rather  elaborate  polite- 
ness of  the  dining-room,  and  in  their  faces  an  impartial 
observer  would  have  discovered  little  lines  of  obstinate 
wilfulness  in^ommon;  a  certain  hardness — sharp,  in- 
deed, in  the  father  and  softly  rounded  in  the  daughter 
— but  hardness  nevertheless,  that  made  I  every  com- 
promise a  bargain  and  every  charity  a  discount?) 

"And  so  you  have  been  thinking?"  her  father  began, 
quoting  her  letter  and  looking  over  his  slanting  glasses 
at  her.  "  Well,  my  girl,  I  wish  you  had  thought  about 
all  these  things  before  these  bothers  began." 

Ann  Veronica  perceived  that  she  must  not  forget  to 
remain  eminently  reasonable. 

"One  has  to  live  and  learn,"  she  remarked,  with  a 
passable  imitation  of  her  father's  manner. 

"So  long  as  you  learn,"  said  Mr.  Stanley. 

Their  conversation  hung. 

"  I  suppose,  daddy,  you've  no  objection  to  my  going 
on  with  my  work  at  the  Imperial  College  ?"  she 
asked. 

"If  it  will  keep  you  busy,"  he  said,  with  a  faintly 
ironical  smile. 
" " The  fees  are  paid  to  the  end  of  the  session." 

He  nodded  twice,  with  his  eyes  on  the  fire,  as  though 
that  was  a  formal  statement. 

"You  may  go  on  with  that  work,"  he  said,  "so  long 
as  you  keep  in  harmony  with  things  at  home.  I'm 
convinced  that  much  of  Russell's  investigations  are 

271 


ANN    VERONICA 

on  wrong  lines,  unsound  lines.     Still — you  must  learn 
for  yourself.     You're  of  age — you're  of  age." 

"The  work's  almost  essential  for  the  B.Sc.  exam." 

"It's  scandalous,  but  I  suppose  i4;  is." 

Their  agreement  so  far  seemed  remarkable,  and  yet 
as  a  home-coming  the  thing  was  a  little  lacking  in 
warmth.  But  Ann  Veronica  had  still  to  get  to  her 
chief  topic.  They  were  silent  for  a  time.  "  It's  a  period 
of  crude  views  and  crude  work,"  said  Mr.  Stanley. 
"Still,  these  Mendelian  fellows  seem  likely  to  give  Mr. 
Russell  trouble,  a  good  lot  of  trouble.  Some  of  their 
specimens — wonderfully  selected,  wonderfully  got  up." 

"Daddy,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  ''these  affairs — being 
away  from  home  has — cost  money." 

"I  thought  you  would  find  that  out." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  happen  to  have  got  a  little  into 
debt." 

"Never!" 

Her  heart  sank  at  the  change  in  his  expression. 

"Well,  lodgings  and  things!  And  I  paid  my  fees  at 
the  College." 

"  Yes.  But  how  could  you  get —  Who  gave  you  credit  ? ' ' 

"You  see,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "my  landlady  kept 
on  my  room  while  I  was  in  Holloway,  and  the  fees  for  the 
College  mounted  up  pretty  considerably."  She  spoke 
rather  quickly,  because  she  found  her  father's  question 
the  most  awkward  she  had  ever  had  to  answer  in  her 
life. 

"Molly  and  you  settled  about  the  rooms.  She  said 
you  had  some  money." 

"I  borrowed  it,"  said  Ann  Veronica  in  a  casual  tone, 
with  white  despair  in  her  heart. 

272 


PUTS  THINGS  IN   ORDER 

"  But  who  could  have  lent  you  money  ?" 

"I  pawned  my  pearl  necklace.  I  got  three  pounds, 
and  there's  three  on  my  watch." 

"Six  pounds.  H'm.  Got  the  tickets?  Yes,  but 
then — you  said  you  borrowed?" 

"I  did,  too,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"Who  from?" 

She  met  his  eye  for  a  second  and  her  heart  failed  her. 
The  truth  was  impossible,  indecent.  If  she  mentioned 
Ramage  he  might  have  a  fit — anything  might  happen. 
She  lied.  "The  Widgetts,"  she  said. 

"Tut,  tut!"  he  said.  "Really,  Vee,  you  seem  to  have 
advertised  our  relations  pretty  generally!" 

"  They — they  knew,  of  course.  Because  of  the 
Dance." 

" How  much  do  you  owe  them?" 

She  knew  forty  pounds  was  a  quite  impossible  sum 
for  their  neighbors.  She  knew,  too,  she  must  not  hesi- 
tate. "Eight  pounds,"  she  plunged,  and  added  foolish- 
ly, "fifteen  pounds  will  see  me  clear  of  everything." 
She  muttered  some  unlady-like  comment  upon  herself 
under  her  breath  and  engaged  in  secret  additions. 

Mr.  Stanley  determined  to  improve  the  occasion.  He 
seemed  to  deliberate.  "Well,"  he  said  at  last  slowly, 
"  I'll  pay  it.  I'll  pay  it.  But  I  do  hope,  Vee,  I  do  hope 
— this  is  the  end  of  these  adventures.  I  hope  you  have 
learned  your  lesson  npw  and  come  to  see — come  to  realize 
— how  things  are.  ^People,  nobody,  can  do  as  they  like 
in  this  world.  ^  Everywhere  there  are  limitations." 

"I  know,"  said  Ann  Veronica  (fifteen  pounds!).  "I 
have  learned  that.  I  mean — I  mean  to  do  what  I  can." 
(Fifteen  pounds.  Fifteen  from  forty  is  twenty-five.) 

273 


ANN    VERONICA 

He  hesitated.  She  could  think  of  nothing  more  to 
say. 

"  Well,"  she  achieved  at  last.  "  Here  goes  for  the  new 
life!" 

"Here  goes  for  the  new  life!"  he  echoed  and  stood  up. 
Father  and  daughter  regarded  each  other  warily,  each 
more  than  a  little  insecure  with  the  other.  He  made  a 
movement  toward  her,  and  then  recalled  the  circum- 
stances of  their  last  conversation  in  that  study.  She 
saw  his  purpose  and  his  doubt,  hesitated  also,  and  then 
went  to  him,  took  his  coat  lapels,  and  kissed  him  on  the 
cheek. 

"Ah,  Vee,"  he  said,  "that's  better!"  and  kissed  her 
back  rather  clumsily.  "We're  going  to  be  sensible." 

She  disengaged  herself  from  him  and  went  out  of  the 
room  with  a  grave,  preoccupied  expression.  (Fifteen 
pounds!  And  she  wanted  forty!) 


§4 

It  was,  perhaps,  the  natural  consequence  of  a  long 
and  tiring  and  exciting  day  that  Ann  Veronica  should 
pass  a  broken  and  distressful  night,  a  night  in  which  the 
noble  and  self-subduing  resolutions  of  Canongate  dis- 
played themselves  for  the  first  time  in  an  atmosphere  of 
almost  lurid  dismay.  Her  father's  peculiar  stiffness  of 
soul  presented  itself  now  as  something  altogether  left 
out  of  the  calculations  upon  which  her  plans  were  based, 
and,  in  particular,  she  had  not  anticipated  the  dif- 
ficulty she  would  find  in  borrowing  the  forty  pounds  she 
needed  for  Ramage.  That  had  taken  her  by  surprise, 

274 


PUTS   THINGS    IN   ORDER 

and  her  tired  wits  had  failed  her.  She  was  to  have  fifteen 
pounds,  and  no  more.  She  knew  that  to  expect  more 
now  was  like  anticipating  a  gold-mine  in  the  garden. 
The  chance  had  gone.  It  became  suddenly  glaringly 
apparent  to  her  that  it  was  impossible  to  return  fifteen 
pounds  or  any  sum  less  than  twenty  pounds  to  Ramage 
— absolutely  impossible.  She  realized  that  with  a  pang 
of  disgust  and  horror. 

Already  she  had  sent  him  twenty  pounds,  and  never 
written  to  explain  to  him  why  it  was  she  had  not  sent  it 
back  sharply  directly  he  returned  it.  She  ought  to  have 
written  at  once  and  told  him  exactly  what  had  happened. 
Now  if  she  sent  fifteen  pounds  the  suggestion  that  she 
had  spent  a  five-pound  note  in  the  meanwhile  would  be 
irresistible.  No!  That  was  impossible.  She  would 
have  just  to  keep  the  fifteen  pounds  until  she  could  make 
it  twenty.  That  might  happen  on  her  birthday — in 
August. 

She  turned  about,  and  was  persecuted  by  visions,  half 
memories,  half  dreams,  of  Ramage.  He  became  ugly 
and  monstrous,  dunning  her,  threatening  her,  assailing 
her. 

"Confound  sex  from  first  to  last!"  said  Ann  Veronica. 
"Why  can't  we  propagate  by  sexless  spores,  as  the  ferns 
do?  We  restrict  each  other,  we  badger  each  other, 
friendship  is  poisoned  and  buried  under  it! ...  I  must  pay 
off  that  forty  pounds.  I  must." 

For  a  time  there  seemed  no  comfort  for  her  even  in 
Capes.  She  was  to  see  Capes  to-morrow,  but  now,  in 
this  state  of  misery  she  had  achieved,  she  felt  assured  he 
would  turn  his  back  upon  her,  take  no  notice  of  her  at 
all.  And  if  he  didn't,  what  was  the  good  of  seeing  him  ? 

275 


ANN    VERONICA 

"Iwish  he  was  a  woman,"  she  said,  "then  I  could  make 
him  my  friend.  I  want  him  as  my  friend.  I  want  to  talk 
to  him  and  go  about  with  him.  Just  go  about  with  him." 

She  was  silent  for  a  time,  with  her  nose  on  the  pillow, 
and  that  brought  her  to:  "What's  the  good  of  pretend- 
ing? 

"I  love  him,"  she  said  aloud  to  the  dim  forms  of  her 
room,  and  repeated  it,  and  went  on  to  imagine  herself 
doing  acts  ©^tragically  dog-like  devotionHo  the  biologist, 
who,  for  the  purposes  of  the  drama,  remained  entirely 
unconscious  of  and  indifferent  to  her  proceedings. 

At  last  some  anodyne  formed  itself  from  these  exercises, 
and,  with  eyelashes  wet  with  such  feeble  tears  as  only 
three-o'clock-in-the-morning  pathos  can  distil,  she  fell 
asleep. 

§  5 

Pursuant  to  some  altogether  private  calculations  she 
did  not  go  up  to  the  Imperial  College  until  after  mid-day, 
and  she  found  the  laboratory  deserted,  even  as  she 
desired.  She  went  to  the  table  under  the  end  window 
at  which  she  had  been  accustomed  to  work,  and  found  it 
swept  and  garnished  with  full  bottles  of  re-agents. 
Everything  was  very  neat ;  it  had  evidently  been  straight- 
ened up  and  kept  for  her.  She  put  down  the  sketch- 
books and  apparatus  she  had  brought  with  her,  pulled 
out  her  stool,  and  sat  down.  As  she  did  so  the  prep- 
aration-room door  opened  behind  her.  She  heard  it 
open,  but  as  she  felt  unable  to  look  round  in  a  careless 
manner  she  pretended  not  to  hear  it.  Then  Capes' 
footsteps  approached.  She  turned  with  an  effort. 


PUTS   THINGS   IN    ORDER 

"I  expected  you  this  morning,"  he  said.  "I  saw — 
they  knocked  off  your  fetters  yesterday." 

"  I  think  it  is  very  good  of  me  to  come  this  afternoon." 

"I  began  to  be  afraid  you  might  not  come  at  all." 

"Afraid!" 

"  Yes.  I'm  glad  you're  back  for  all  sorts  of  reasons." 
He  spoke  a  little  nervously.  "Among  other  things, 
you  know,  I  didn't  understand  quite — I  didn't  under- 
stand that  you  were  so  keenly  interested  in  this  suffrage 
question.  I  have  it  on  my  conscience  that  I  offended 
you—" 

"Offended  me  when?" 

"I've  been  haunted  by  the  memory  of  you.  I  was 
rude  and  stupid.  We  were  talking  about  the  suffrage — 
and  I  rather  scoffed." 

"You  weren't  rude,"  she  said. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  so  keen  on  this  suffrage 
business." 

"Nor  I.  You  haven't  had  it  on  your  mind  all  this 
time?" 

"  I  have  rather.     I  felt  somehow  I'd  hurt  you." 

"You  didn't.     I— I  hurt  myself." 

"I  mean—  " 

"  I  behaved  like  an  idiot,  that's  all.  My  nerves 
were  in  rags.  I  was  worried.  We're  the  hysterical 
animal,  Mr.  Capes.  (l  got  myself  locked  up  to  cool 
off.  )  By  a  sort  of  instinct.  As  a  dog  eats  grass.  I'm 
right  again  now." 

"Because  your  nerves  were  exposed,  that  was  no 
excuse  for  my  touching  them.  I  ought  to  have  seen — " 

"It  doesn't  matter  a  rap — if  you're  not  disposed  to 
resent  the — the  way  I  behaved." 

277 


ANN    VERONICA 

"/resent!" 

"  I  was  only  sorry  I'd  been  so  stupid." 

"Well,  I  take  it  we're  straight  again,"  said  Capes 
with  a  note  of  relief,  and  assumed  an  easier  position 
on  the  edge  of  her  table.  "But  if  you  weren't  keen 
on  the  suffrage  business,  why  on  earth  did  you  go  to 
prison?" 

Ann  Veronica  reflected.     "It  was  a  phase,"  she  said. 

He  smiled.  "It's  a  new  phaseintKe  life  history," 
he  remarked.  "Everybody  seems  to  have  it  now. 
Everybody  who's  going  to  develop  into  a  woman." 

"There's  Miss  Garvice." 

"She's  coming  on,"  said  Capes.  "And,  you  know, 
you're  altering  us  all.  Tm  shaken.  The  campaign's 
a  success."  He  met  her  questioning  eye,  and  repeated, 
"Oh!  it  is  a  success.  A  man  is  so  apt  to — to  take 
women  a  little  too  lightly'.  Unless  they  remind  him  now 
and  then  not  to.  ...  You  did.*" 

"Then  I  didn't  waste  my  time  in  prison  altogether?" 

"It  wasn't  the  prison  impressed  me.  But  I  liked 
the  things  you  said  here.  I  felt  suddenly  I  understood 
you — as  an  intelligent  person.  If  you'll  forgive  my 
saying  that,  and  implying  what  goes  with  it.  There's 
something  —  PuPjEJiSb  in  a  man's  usual  attitude  to 
women.  That  is  what  I've  had  on  my  conscience.  .  .  . 
I  don't  think  we're  altogether  to  blame  if  we  don't 
take  some  of  your  lot  seriously.  Some  of  your  sex, 
I  mean.  But  we  smirk  a  little,  I'm  afraid,  habitually 
when  we  talk  to  you.  We  smirk,  and  we're  a  bit — 
furtive." 

He  paused,  with  his  eyes  studying  her  gravely. 
"You,  anyhow,  don't  deserve  it,"  he  said. 

278 


PUTS   THINGS   IN    ORDER 

Their  colloquy  was  ended  abruptly  by  the  apparition 
of  Miss  Klegg  at  the  further  door.  When  she  saw 
Ann  Veronica  she  stood  for  a  moment  as  if  entranced, 
and  then  advanced  with  outstretched  hands.  "Veron- 
ique!"  she  cried  with  a  rising  intonation,  though  never 
before  had  she  called  Ann  Veronica  anything  but  Miss 
Stanley,  and  seized  her  and  squeezed  her  and  kissed 
her  with  profound  emotion.  "To  think  that  you  were 
going  to  do  it — and  never  said  a  word !  You  are  a  little 
thin,  but  except  for  that  you  look — you  look  better  than 
ever.  Was  it  very  horrible?  I  tried  to  get  into  the 
police-court,  but  the  crowd  was  ever  so  much  too  big, 
push  as  I  would.  .  .  . 

"I  mean  to  go  to  prison  directly  the  session  is  over," 
said  Miss  Klegg.  "Wild  horses — not  if  they  have  all 
the  mounted  police  in  London — shan't  keep  me  out." 


§  6 

Capes  lit  things  wonderfully  for  Ann  Veronica  all 
that  afternoon,  he  was  so  friendly,  so  palpably  in- 
terested in  her,  and  glad  to  have  her  back  with  him. 
(Tea  in  the  laboratory  was  a  sort  of  suffragette  receptions 
Miss  Garvice  assumed  a  quality  of  neutrality,  pro- 
fessed herself  almost  won  over  by  Ann  Veronica's 
example,  and  the  Scotchman  decided  that  if  women 
had  a  distinctive  sphere  it  was,  at  any  rate,  an  enlarging 
sphere,  and  no  one  who  believed  in  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  could  logically  deny  the  vote  to  women 
"ultimately,"  however  much  they  might  be  disposed 
to  doubt  the  advisability  of  its  immediate  concession. 

279 


ANN    VERONICA 

It  was  a  refusal  of  expediency,  he  said,  and  not  an  ab- 
solute refusal.  The  youth  with  his  hair  like  Russell 
cleared  his  throat  and  said  rather  irrelevantly  that  he 
knew  a  man  who  knew  Thomas  Bayard  Simmons, 
who  had  rioted  in  the  Strangers'  Gallery,  and  then  Capes, 
rinding  them  all  distinctly  pro-Ann  Veronica,  if  not 
pro-feminist,  ventured  to  be  perverse,  and  started  a 
vein  of  speculation  upon  the  Scotchman's  idea — that 
there  were  still  hopes  of  women  evolving  into  some- 
thing higher. 

He  was  unusually  absurd  and  ready,  and  all  the 
time  it  seemed  to  Ann  Veronica  as  a  delightful  possibility, 
as  a  thing  not  indeed  to  be  entertained  seriously,  but 
to  be  half  furtively  felt,  that  he  was  being  so  agreeable 
because  she  had  come  back  again.  She  returned  home 
through  a  world  that  was  as  roseate  as  it  had  been 
gray  overnight. 

But  as  she  got  out  of  the  train  at  Morningside  Park 
Station  she  had  a  shock.  She  saw,  twenty  yards  down 
the  platform,  the  shiny  hat  and  broad  back  and  in- 
imitable swagger  pf  Ramage.  She  dived  at  once  behind 
the  cover  of  the  lamp-room  and  affected  serious  trouble 
with  her  shoe-lace  until  he  was  out  of  the  station, 
and  then  she  followed  slowly  and  with  extreme  discre- 
tion until  the  bifurcation  of  the  Avenue  from  the  field 
way  insured  her  escape.  Ramage  went  up  the  Avenue, 
and  she  hurried  along  the  path  with  a  beating  heart  and 
a  disagreeable  sense  of  unsolved  problems  in  her  mind. 

"That  thing's  going  on,"  she  told  herself.  "Every- 
thing goes  on,  confound  it!  One  doesn't  change  any- 
thing one  has  set  going  by  making  good  resolutions." 

And  then  ahead  of  her  she  saw  the  radiant  and 

280 


PUTS   THINGS    IN    ORDER 

welcoming  figure  of  Manning.  He  came  as  an  agreeable 
diversion  from  an  insoluble  perplexity.  She  smiled 
at  the  sight  of  him,  and  thereat  his  radiation  increased. 

"I  missed  the  hour  of  your  release,"  he  said,  "but 
I  was  at  the  Vindicator  Restaurant.  You  did  not  see 
me,  I  know.  I  was  among  the  common  herd  in  the 
place  below,  but  I  took  good  care  to  see  you." 

"Of  course  you're  converted?"  she  said. 

"To  the  view  that  all  those  Splendid  Women  in  the 
rnovement  ought  to  have  votes.  Rather!  Who  could 
kelp  it?" 

L  He  towered  up  over  her  and  smiled  down  at  her  in 
his  iatherlv  way. 

"To  the  view  that  all  women  ought  to  have  votes 
whether  they  like  it  or  not." 

He  shook  his  head,  and  his  eyes  and  the  mouth  under 
the  black  mustache  wrinkled  with  his  smile.  And  as 
he  walked  by  her  side  they  began  a  wrangle  that  was 
none  the  less  pleasant  to  Ann  Veronica  because  it  served 
to  banish  a  disagreeable  preoccupation.  It  seemed  to 
her  in  her  restored  geniality  that  she  liked  Manning 
extremely.  The  brightness  Capes  had  diffused  over 
the  world  glorified  even  his  rival. 


§  7 

The  steps  by  which  Ann  Veronica  determined  to  en- 
gage herself  to  marry  Manning  were  never  very  clear 
to  her.  A  medley  of  motives  warred  in  her,  and  it  was 
certainly  not  one  of  the  least  of  these  that  she  knew 
herself  to  be  passionately  in  love  with  Capes ;  at  moments 

281 


ANN    VERONICA 

she  had  a  giddy  intimation  that  he  was  beginning  to 
feel  keenly  interested  in  her.  She  realized  more  and 
more  the  quality  of  the  brink  upon  which  she  stood — 
the  dreadful  readiness  with  which  in  certain  moods  she 
might  plunge,  the  unmitigated  wrongness  and  reckless- 
ness of  such  a  self-abandonment.  "He  must  never 
know,"  she  would  whisper  to  herself,  "he  must  never 
know.  Or  else—  Else  it  will  be  impossible  that  I  can 
be  his  friend." 

That  simple  statement  of  the  case  was  by  no  means 
all  that  went  on  in  Ann  Veronica's  mind.  But  it  was 
the  form  of  her  ruling  determination;  it  was  the  only 
form  that  she  ever  allowed  to  see  daylight.  What  else 
was  there  lurked  in  shadows  and  deep  places;  if  in  some 
mood  of  reverie  it  came  out  into  the  light,  it  was  pres- 
ently overwhelmed  and  hustled  back  again  into  hiding. 
She  would  never  look  squarely  at  these  dream  forms 
that  mocked  the  social  order  in  which  she  lived,  never 
admit  she  listened  to  the  soft  whisperings  in  her  ear. 
But  Manning  seemed  more  and  more  clearly  indicated 
as  a  refuge,  as  security.  Certain  simple  purposes 
emerged  from  the  disingenuous  muddle  of  her  feelings 
and  desires.  Seeing  Capes  from  day  to  day  made  a 
bright  eventfulness  that  hampered  her  in  the  course 
she  had  resolved  to  follow.  She  vanished  from  the 
laboratory  for  a  week,  a  week  of  oddly  interesting 
days.  .  .  . 

When  she  renewed  her  attendance  at  the  Imperial 
College  the  third  finger  of  her  left  hand  was  adorned 
with  a  very  fine  old  ring  with  dark  blue  sapphires  that 
had  once  belonged  to  a  great-aunt  of  Manning's. 

That  ring  manifestly  occupied  her  thoughts  a  great 

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PUTS   THINGS   IN    ORDER 

deal.  She  kept  pausing  in  her  work  and  regarding  it, 
and  when  Capets  came  round  to  her,  she  first  put  her 
hand  in  her  lap  and  then  rather  awkwardly  in  front  of 
him.  But  men  are  often  blind  to  rings.  He  seemed 
to  be. 

In  the  afternoon  she  had  considered  certain  doubts 
very  carefully,  and  decided  on  a  more  emphatic  course 
of  action.  "Are  these  ordinary  sapphires?"  she  said. 
He  bent  to  her  hand,  and  she  slipped  off  the  ring  and 
gave  it  to  him  to  examine. 

"Very  good,"  he  said.  "Rather  darker  than  most 
of  them.  But  I'm  generously  ignorant  of  gems.  Is  it 
an  old  ring?"  he  asked,  returning  it. 

"I  believe  it  is.  It's  an  engagement  ring.  .  .  ."  She 
slipped  it  on  her  finger,  and  added,  in  a  voice  she  tried 
to  make  matter-of-fact:  "  It  was  given  to  me  last  week." 

"Oh!"  he  said,  in  a  colorless  tone,  and  with  his  eyes 
on  her  face. 

"Yes.     Last  week." 

She  glanced  at  him,  and  it  was  suddenly  apparent  for 
one  instant  of  illumination  that  this  ring  upon  her  finger 
was  the  /crowning  blunder  of  her  life.  It  was  appar- 
ent, and  then  it  faded  into  the  quality  of  an  inevitable 
necessity. 

"Odd!"  he  remarked,  rather  surprisingly,  after  a 
little  interval. 

There  was  a  brief  pause,  a  crowded  pause,  between 
them. 

She  sat  very  still,  and  his  eyes  rested  on  that  orna- 
ment for  a  moment,  and  then  travelled  slowly  to  her 
wrist  and  the  soft  lines  of  her  forearm. 

"I  suppose.  I  ought  to  congratulate  you,"  he  said. 
19  283 


ANN    VERONICA 

Their  eyes  met,  and  his  expressed  perplexity  and  curi- 
osity. "  The  fact  is — I  don't  know  why — this  takes  me 
by  surprise.  Somehow  I  haven't  connected  the  idea 
with  you.  You  seemed  complete — without  that." 

-"Did  I?"  she  said. 

"  I  don't  know  why.  But  this  is  like — like  walking 
round  a  house  that  looks  square  and  complete  and  find- 
ing an  unexpected  long  wing  running  out  behind.^/ 

She  looked  up  at  him,  and  found  he  was  watching 
her  closely.  For  some  seconds  of  voluminous  thinking 
they  looked  at  the  ring  between  them,  and  neither 
spoke.  Then  Capes  shifted  his  eyes  to  her  microscope 
and  the  little  trays  of  unmounted  sections  beside  it. 
"  How  is  that  carmine  working?"  he  asked,  with  a  forced 
interest. 

"Better,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  an  unreal  alacrity. 
"But  it  still  misses  the  nucleolus." 


CHAPTER    THE    THIRTEENTH 

THE    SAPPHIRE    RING 
§    I 

FOR  a  time  that  ring  set  with  sapphires  seemed  to 
be,  after  all,  the  satisfactory  solution  of  Ann 
Veronica's  difficulties.  It  was  like  pouring  a  strong 
acid  over  dulled  metal.  A  tarnish  of  constraint  that 
had  recently  spread  over  her  intercourse  with  Capes 
vanished  again.  \  They  embarked  upon  an  open  and 
declared  friendship.  )  They  even  talked  about  friend- 
ship. They  went  to  the  Zoological  Gardens  together 
one  Saturday  to  see  for  themselves  a  point  of  morpholog- 
ical interest  about  the  toucan's  bill — that  friendly  and 
entertaining  bird — and  they  spent  the  rest  of  the  after- 
noon walking  about  and  elaborating  in  general  terms 
this  theme  and  the  superiority  of  intellectual  fellowship 
to  all  merely  passionate  relationships.  Upon  this  topic 
Capes  was  heavy  and  conscientious,  but  that  seemed  to 
her  to  be  just  exactly  what  he  ought  to  be.  He  was  also, 
had  she  known  it,  more  theory  little  insincere.  "  We 
are  only  in  the  dawn  of  the  Age  of  Friendship,"  he  said, 
"  when  interest,  I  suppose,  will  take  the  place  of  passions. 
Either  you  have  had  to  love  people  or  hate  them — which 
is  a  sort  of  love,  too,  in  its  way — to  get  anything  out  of 
them.  Now,  more  and  more,  we're  going  to  be  interested 

285 


ANN    VERONICA 

in  them,  to  be  curious  about  them  and — quite  mildly — 
experimental  with  them."  He  seemed  to  be  elaborating 
ifreaT  as  he  talked.  They  watched  the  chimpanzees  in 
the  new  apes'  house,  and  admired  the  gentle  humanity  of 
their  eyes — "  so  much  more  human  than  human  beings" 
— and  they  watched  the  Agile  Gibbon  in  the  next  apart- 
ment doing  wonderful  leaps  and  aerial  somersaults. 

"  I  wonder  which  of  us  enjoys  that  most,"  said  Capes — 
"does  he,  or  do  we?" 

"  He  seems  to  get  a  zest — " 

"  He  does  it  and  forgets  it.  We  remember  it.  These 
joyful  bounds  just  lace  into  the  stuff  of  my  memories 
and  stay  there  forever.  ^iyjng^^«s^-material." 

"  It's  very  good  to  be  alive."  V^.- 

^'It's  better  to  know  life  than  be  life." 

"  One  may  do  both,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

She  was  in  a  very  uncritical  state  that  afternoon. 
When  he  said,  "Let's  go  and  see  the  wart-hog,"  she 
thought  no  one  ever  had  had  so  quick  a  flow  of  good  ideas 
as  he;  and  when  he  explained  that  sugar  and  not  buns 
was  the  talisman  of  popularity  among  the  animals,  she 
marvelled  at  his  practical  omniscience. 

Finally,  at  the  exit  into  Regent's  Park,  they  ran  against 
Miss  Klegg.  It  was  the  expression  of  Miss  Klegg's  face 
that  put  the  idea  into  Ann  Veronica's  head  of  showing 
Manning  at  the  College  one  day,  an  idea  which  she  didn't 
for  some  reason  or  other  carry  out  for  a  fortnight. 


§   2 

When  at  last  she  did  so,  the  sapphire  ring  took  on  a 
new  quality  in  the  imagination  of  Capes.     It  ceased  to 

286 


THE   SAPPHIRE    RING 

be  the  symbol  of  liberty  and  a  remote  and  quite  ab- 
stracted person,  and  became  suddenly  and  very  dis- 
agreeably the  token  of  a  large  and  portentous  body 
visible  and  tangible. 

Manning  appeared  just  at  the  end  of  the  afternoon's 
work,  and  the  biologist  was  going  through  some  per- 
plexities the  Scotchman  had  created  by  a  metaphysical 
treatment  of  the  skulls  of  Hyrax  and  a  young  African 
elephant.  He  was  clearing  up  these  difficulties  by 
tracing  a  partially  obliterated  suture  the  Scotchman 
had  overlooked  when  the  door  from  the  passage  opened, 
and  Manning  came  into  his  universe. 

Seen  down  the  length  of  the  laboratory,  Manning  looked 
a  very  handsome  and  shapely  gentleman  indeed,  and,  at 
the  sight  of  his  eager  advance  to  his  -fiancee,  Miss  Klegg 
replaced  one  long-cherished  romance  about  Ann  Veronica 
by  one  more  normal  and  simple.  He  carried  a  cane  and 
a  silk  hat  with  a  mourning-band  in  one  gray-gloved  hand ; 
his  frock-coat  and  trousers  were  admirable ;  his  handsome 
face,  his  black  mustache,  his  prominent  brow  conveyed 
an  eager  solicitude. 

"I  want,"  he  said,  with  a  white  hand  outstretched, 
"to  take  you  out  to  tea." 

"  I've  been  clearing  up,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  brightly. 

"All  your  dreadful  scientific  things?"  he  said,  with  a 
smile  that  Miss  Klegg  thought  extraordinarily  kindly. 

"  All  my  dreadful  scientific  things,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

He  stood  back,  smiling  with  an  air  of  proprietorship, 
and  looking  about  him  at  the  business-like  equipment  of 
the  room.  The  low  ceiling  made  him  seem  abnormally 
tall.  Ann  Veronica  wiped  a  scalpel,  put  a  card  over  a 
watch-glass  containing  thin  shreds  of  embryonic  guinea- 

287 


ANN    VERONICA 

pig  swimming  in  mauve  stain,  and  dismantled  her 
microscope. 

"I  wish  I  understood  more  of  biology,"  said  Manning. 

"I'm  ready,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  closing  her  micro- 
scope-box with  a  click,  and  looking  for  one  brief  instant 
up  the  laboratory.  "We  have  no  airs  and  graces  here, 
and  my  hat  hangs  from  a  peg  in  the  passage." 

She  led  the  way  to  the  door,  and  Manning  passed 
behind  her  and  round  her  and  opened  the  door  for  her. 
When  Capes  glanced  up  at  them  for  a  moment,  Manning 
seemed  to  be  holding  his  arms  all  about  her,  and  there 
was  nothing  but  quiet  acquiescence  in  her  bearing. 

After  Capes  had  finished  the  Scotchman's  troubles 
he  went  back  into  the  preparation-room.  He  sat  down 
on  the  sill  of  the  open  window,  folded  his  arms,  and 
stared  straight  before  him  for  a  long  time  over  the 
wilderness  of  tiles  and  chimney-pots  into  a  sky  that  was 
blue  and  empty.  He  was  not  addicted  to  monologue, 
and  the  only  audible  comment  he  permitted  himself  at 
first  upon  a  universe  that  was  evidently  anything  but 
satisfactory  to  him  that  afternoon,  was  one  compact 
and  entirely  unassigned  "Damn!" 

The  word  must  have  had  some  gratifying  quality, 
because  he  repeated  it.  Then  he  stood  up  and  repeated 
it  again.  "The  fool  I  have  been!"  he  cried;  and  now 
speech  was  coming  to  him.  He  tried  this  sentence  with 
expletives.  "  Ass!"  he  went  on,  still  warming.  "  Muck- 
headed  moral  ass!  I  ought  to  have  done  anything.  I 
ought  to  have  done  anything! 

"What's  a  man  for? 

"Friendship!" 

He  doubled  up  his  fist,  and  seemed  to  contemplate 

288 


THE   SAPPHIRE    RING 

thrusting  it  through  the  window.  He  turned  his  back 
on  that  temptation.  Then  suddenly  he  seized  a  new 
preparation  bottle  that  stood  upon  his  table  and  con- 
tained the  better  part  of  a  week's  work — a  displayed 
dissection  of  a  snail,  beautifully  done — and  Jiurled  it 
across  the^  room,  to  smash  resoundingly  upon  the 
cemented  floor  under  the  bookcase;  then,  without  either 
haste  or  pause,  he  swept  his  arm  along  a  shelf  of  re- 
agents and  sent  them  to  mingle  with  the  debris  on  the 
floor.  They  fell  in  a  diapason  of  smashes.  "H'm!"  he 
said,  regarding  the  wreckage  with  a  calmer  visage. 
"Silly!"  he  remarked  after  a  pause.  "One  hardly 
knows — all  the  time." 

He  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  mouth  puck- 
ered to  a  whistle,  and  he  went  to  the  door  of  the  outer 
preparation-room  and  stood  there,  looking,  save  for 
the  faintest  intensification  of  his  natural  ruddiness, 
the  embodiment  of  blond  serenity. 

"Gellett,"  he  called,  "just  come  and  clear  up  a  mess, 
will  you?  I've  smashed  some  things." 


§3 

There  was  one  serious  flaw  in  Ann  Veronica's  arrange- 
ments for  self -rehabilitation,  and  that  was  Ramage. 
He  hung  over  her — he  and  his  loan  to  her  and  his  con- 
nection with  her  and  that  terrible  evening — a  vague, 
disconcerting  possibility  of  annoyance  and  exposure. 
She  could  not  see  any  relief  from  this  anxiety  except 
repayment,  and  repayment  seemed  impossible.  The 
raising  of  twenty-five  pounds  was  a  task  altogether  be- 

289 


ANN    VERONICA 

yond  her  powers.  Her  birthday  was  four  months  away, 
and  that,  at  its  extremist  point,  might  give  her  another 
five  pounds. 

The  thing  rankled  in  her  mind  night  and  day.  She 
would  wake  in  the  night  to  repeat  her  bitter  cry:  "Oh, 
why  did  I  burn  those  notes?" 

It  added  greatly  to  the  annoyance  of  the  situation 
that  she  had  twice  seen  Ramage  in  the  Avenue  since 
her  return  to  the  shelter  of  her  father's  roof.  He  had 
saluted  her  with  elaborate  civility,  his  eyes  distended 
with  indecipherable  meanings. 

She  felt  she  was  bound  in  honor  to  tell  the  whole 
affair  to  Manning  sooner  or  later.  Indeed,  it  seemed 
inevitable  that  she  must  clear  it  up  with  his  assistance, 
or  not  at  all.  And  when  Manning  was  not  about  the 
thing  seemed  simple  enough.  She  would  compose  ex- 
tremely lucid  and  honorable  explanations.  But  when 
it  came  to  broaching  them,  it  proved  to  be  much  more 
difficult  than  she  had  supposed. 

They  went  down  the  great  staircase  of  the  building, 
and,  while  she  sought  in  her  mind  for  a  beginning,  he 
broke  into  appreciation  of  her  simple  dress  and  self- 
congratulations  upon  their  engagement. 

"It  makes  me  feel,"  he  said,  "that  nothing  is  im- 
possible— to  have  you  here  beside  me.  I  said,  that  day 
at  Surbiton, '  There's  many  good  things  in  life,  but  there's 
only  one  best,  and  that's  the  wild-haired  girl  who's  pull- 
ing away  at  that  oar.  I  will  make  her  my  Grail,  and 
some  day,  perhaps,  if  God  wills,  she  shall  become  my 
wife!'" 

He  looked  very  hard  before  him  as  he  said  this,  and 
his  voice  was  full  of  deep  feeling. 

290 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

"Grail!"  said  Ann  Veronica;  and  then:  "Oh,  yes — 
of  course!  Anything  but  a  holy  one,  I'm  afraid." 

"Altogether  holy,  Ann  Veronica.  Ah!  but  you  can't 
imagine  what  you  are  to  me  and  what  you  mean  to  me ! 
I  suppose  there  is  something  mystical  and  wonderful 
about  all  women." 

"There  is  something  mystical  and  wonderful  about 
all  human  beings,  fl  don't  see  that  men  need  bank  it 
with  the  women."  } 

"A  man  does,"  said  Manning — "a  true  man,  anyhow. 
And  for  me  there  is  only  one  treasure-house.  By  Jove! 
When  I  think  of  it  I  want  to  leap  and  shout!" 

"It  would  astonish  that  man  with  the  barrow." 

"It  astonishes  me  that  I  don't,"  said  Manning,  in  a 
tone  of  intense  self-enjoyment. 

"I  think,"  began  Ann  Veronica,  "that  you  don't 
realize — " 

He  disregarded  her  entirely.  He  waved  an  arm  and 
spoke  with  a  peculiar  resonance.  "I  feel  like  a  giant! 
I  believe  now  I  shall  do  great  things.  Gods!  what  it 
must  be  to  pour  out  strong,  splendid  verse — mighty 
lines!  mighty  lines!  If  I  do,  Ann  Veronica,  it  will  be 
you.  It  will  be  altogether  you.  I  will  dedicate  my 
books  to  you.  I  will  lay  them  all  at  your  feet." 

He  beamed  upon  her. 

"I  don't  think  you  realize,"  Ann  Veronica  began 
again,  "that  I  am  rather  a  defective  human  being." 

"I  don't  want  to,"  said  Manning.  "They  say  there 
are  spots  on  the  sun.  Not  for  me.  It  warms  me,  and 
lights  me,  and  fills  my  world  with  flowers.  Why  should 
I  peep  at  it  through  smoked  glass  to  see  things  that  don't 
affect  me?"  He  smiled  his  delight  at  his  companion. 

291 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I've  got  bad  faults." 

He  shook  his  head  slowly,  smiling  mysteriously. 

"But  perhaps  I  want  to  confess  them." 

"I  grant  you  absolution." 

"  I  don't  want  absolution.  I  want  to  make  myself 
visible  to  you." 

"  I  wish  I  could  make  you  visible  to  yourself.  I 
don't  believe  in  the  faults.  They're  just  a  joyous 
softening  of  the  outline — more  beautiful  than  perfec- 
tion. Like  the  flaws  of  an  old  marble.  If  you  talk  of 
your  faults,  I  shall  talk  of  your  splendors." 

"I  do  want  to  tell  you  things,  nevertheless." 

"We'll  have,  thank  God!  ten  myriad  days  to  tell 
each  other  things.  When  I  think  of  it — " 

"But  these  are  things  I  want  to  tell  you  now!" 

"I  made  a  little  song  of  it.  Let  me  say  it  to  you. 
I've  no  name  for  it  yet.  Epithalamy  might  do. 

"  Like  him  who  stood  on  Darien, 

I  view  uncharted  sea, 
Ten  thousand  days,  ten  thousand  nights 
Before  my  Queen  and  me. 

"And  that  only  brings  me  up  to  about  sixty-five! 

"  A  glittering  wilderness  of  time, 

That  to  the  sunset  reaches; 
No  keel  as  yet  its  waves  has  ploughed, 
Or  gritted  on  its  beaches. 

"  And  we  will  sail  that  splendor  wide, 

From  day  to  day  together, 
From  isle  to  isle  of  happiness, 

Through  year's  of  God's  own  weather." 

"Yes,"  said  his  prospective  fellow-sailor,  "that's 
very  pretty."  She  stopped  short,  full  of  things  un- 

292 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

said.  Pretty !  Ten  thousand  days,  ten  thousand 
nights ! 

"  You  shall  tell  me  your  faults,"  said  Manning.  "  If 
they  matter  to  you,  they  matter." 

"It  isn't  precisely  faults,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "It's 
something  that  bothers  me."  Ten  thousand!  Put  that 
way  it  seemed  so  different. 

"Then  assuredly!"  said  Manning. 

She  found  a  little  difficulty  in  beginning.  She  was 
glad  when  he  went  on:  "I  want  to  be  your  city  of 
refuge  from  every  sort  of  bother.  I  want  to  stand 
between  you  and  all  the  force  and  vileness  of  the  world. 
I  want  to  make  you  feel  that  here  is  a  place  where  the 
crowd  does  not  clamor  nor  ill- winds  blow." 

"That  is  all  very  well,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  unheeded. 

"That  is  my  dream  of  you,"  said  Manning,  warming. 
"  I  want  my  life  to  be  beaten  gold  just  in  order  to  make 
it  a  fitting  setting  for  yours.  There  you  will  be,  in  an 
inner  temple.  I  want  to  enrich  it  with  hangings  and 
gladden  it  with  verses.  I  want  to  fill  it  with  fine  and 
precious  things.  And  by  degrees,  perhaps,  that  maiden 
distrust  of  yours  that  makes  you  shrink  from  my  kisses, 
will  vanish.  .  .  .  Forgive  me  if  a  certain  warmth,  creeps 
into  my  words!  The  Park  is  green  and  gray  to-day, 
but  I  am  glowing  pink  and  gold.  ...  It  is  difficult  to 
express  these  things." 

§  4 

They  sat  with  tea  and  strawberries  and  cream  before 
them  at  a  little  table  in  front  of  the  pavilion  in  Regent's 
Park.  Her  confession  was  still  unmade.  Manning 

293 


ANN    VERONICA 

leaned  forward  on  the  table,  talking  discursively  on  the 
probable  brilliance  of  their  married  life.  Ann  Veronica 
sat  back  in  an  attitude  of  inattention,  her  eyes  on  a 
distant  game  of  cricket,  her  mind  perplexed  and  busy. 
She  was  recalling  the  circumstances  under  which  she  had 
engaged  herself  to  Manning,  and  trying  to  understand  a 
curious  development  of  the  quality  of  this  relationship. 

The  particulars  of  her  engagement  were  very  clear 
in  her  memory.  She  had  taken  care  he  should  have 
this  momentous  talk  with  her  on  a  garden-seat  com- 
manded by  the  windows  of  the  house.  They  had 
been  playing  tennis,  with  his  manifest  intention  looming 
over  her. 

"Let  us  sit  down  for  a  moment,"  he  had  said.  He 
made  his  speech  a  little  elaborately.  She  plucked 
at  the  knots  of  her  racket  and  heard  him  to  the  end, 
then  spoke  in  a  restrained  undertone. 

"You  ask  me  to  be  engaged  to  you,  Mr.  Manning," 
she  began. 

"I  want  to  lay  all  my  life  at  your  feet." 

"Mr.  Manning,  I  do  not  think  I  love  you.  ...  I  want 
to  be  very  plain  with  you.  I  have  nothing,  nothing 
that  can  possibly  be  passion  for  you.  I  am  sure. 
Nothing  at  all." 

He  was  silent  for  some  moments. 

"Perhaps  that  is  only  sleeping,"  he  said.  "How 
can  you  know?" 

"I  think — perhaps  I  am  rather  a  cold-blooded  person." 

She  stopped.     He  remained  listening  attentively. 

"You  have  been  very  kind  to  me,"  she  said. 

"I  would  give  my  life  for  you." 

Her  heart  had  warmed  toward  him.  It  had  seemed 

294 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

to  her  that  life  might  be  very  good  indeed  with  his 
kindliness  and  sacrifice  about  her.  She  thought  of 
him  as  always  courteous  and  helpful,  as  realizing,  indeed, 
f  his  ideal  of  protection  and  service,  as  chivalrously 
leaving  her  free  to  live  her  own  life,  rejoicing  with  an 
infinitexgenerosity  in  every  detail  of  her  irresponsive 
being.  (  She  twanged  the  catgut  under  her  fingers.  / 

"It  seems  so  unfair,"  she  said,  "to  take  all  you  offer 
me  and  give  so  little  in  return." 

"It  is  all  the  world  to  me.  And  we  are  not  traders 
looking  at  equivalents." 

"You  know,  Mr.  Manning,  I  do  not  really  want  to 
marry." 

"No." 

"It  seems  so — so  unworthy" — she  picked  among 
her  phrases — "of  the  noble  love  you  give — •" 

She  stopped,  through  the  difficulty  she  found  in  ex- 
pressing herself. 

"But  I  am  judge  of  that,"  said  Manning. 

"Would  you  wait  for  me?" 
.  Manning  was  silent  for  a  space.     "As  my  lady  wills." 

"Would  you  let  me  go  on  studying  for  a  time?" 

"If  you  order  patience." 

"I  think,  Mr.  Manning  ...  I  do  not  know.  It  is  so 
difficult.  When  I  think  of  the  love  you  give  me — 
One  ought  to  give  you  back  love." 

"You  like  me?" 

"Yes.     And  I  am  grateful  to  you.  ..." 

Manning  tapped  with  his  racket  on  the  turf  through 
some  moments  of  silence.  "You  are  the  most  perfect, 
the  most  glorious  of  created  things — tender,  frank, 
intellectual,  brave,  beautiful.  I  am  your  servitor. 

295 


ANN    VERONICA 

I  am  ready  to  wait  for  you,  to  wait  your  pleasure,  to 
give  all  my  life  to  winning  it.  Let  me  only  wear  your 
livery.  Give  me  but  leave  to  try.  You  want  to  think 
for  a  time,  to  be  free  for  a  time.  That  is  so  like  you, 
Diana  —  Pallas  Athene!  (Pallas  Athene  is  better.) 
You  are  all  the  slender  goddesses.  I  understand.  Let 
me  engage  myself.  That  is  all  I  ask." 

She  looked  at  him;  his  face,  downcast  and  in  profile, 
was  handsome  and  strong.  Her  gratitude  swelled 
within  her. 

11  You  are  too  good  for  me,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice. 

"Then  you—  you  will?" 

A  long  pause. 

"It  isn't  fair.  .  .  ." 

"But  will  you?" 


For  some  seconds  he  had  remained  quite  still. 

"  If  I  sit  here,"  he  said,  standing  up  before  her  abruptly, 
"I  shall  have  to  shout.  Let  us  walk  about.  Turn, 
turn,  tirray,  turn,  turn,  turn,  te-tum  —  that  thing  of 
Mendelssohn's!")  If  making  one  human  being  absolutely 
happy  is  any  satisfaction  to  you  —  " 

He  held  out  his  hands,  and  she  also  stood  up. 

He  drew  her  close  up  to  him  with  a  strong,  steady 
pull.  Then  suddenly,  in  front  of  all  those  windows, 
he  folded  her  in  his  arms  and  pressed  her  to  him,  and 
kissed  her  unresisting  face. 

"Don't!"  cried  Ann  Veronica,  struggling  faintly, 
and  he  released  her. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said.  "But  I  am  _  at  "  singing- 
pitch." 

She  had  a  moment  of  sheer  rjanic  at  the  thing  she 
296 


THE   SAPPHIRE    RING 

had  done.  "Mr.  Manning,"  she  said,  "for  a  time — 
Will  you  tell  no  one?  Will  you  keep  this — our  secret? 
I  'm  doubtful —  Will  you  please  not  even  tell  my  aunt  ? ' ' 
"As  you  will,"  he  said.  "But  if  my  manner  tells! 
I  cannot  help  it  if  that  shows.  You  only  mean  a  secret — • 
for  a  little  time?" 

"Just  for  a  little  time,"  she  said;  "yes.  ..." 
But  the  ring,  and  her  aunt's  triumphant  eye,  and 
a  note  of  approval  in  her  father's  manner,  and  a  novel 
disposition  in  him  to  praise  Manning  in  a  just,  impartial 
voice  had  soon  placed  very  definite  qualifications  upon 
that  covenanted  secrecy. 

§5 

At  first  the  quality  of  her  relationship  to  Manning 
seemed  moving  and  beautiful  to  Ann  Veronica.  She 
admired  and  rather  pitied  him,  and  she  was  unfeignedly 
grateful  to  him.  She  even  thought  that  perhaps  she 
might  come  to  love  him,  in  spite  of  that  faint  inde- 
finable flavor  of  absurdity  that  pervaded  his  courtly 
bearing.  She  would  never  love  him  as  she  loved  Capes, 
of  course,  but  there  are  grades  and  qualities  of  love.  For 
Manning  it  would  be  a  more  temperate  love  altogether. 
Much  more  temperate ;  ^the  discreet  and  joyless  love  of  a 
virtuous,  reluctant,  condescending  wife.v  She  had  been 
quite  convinced  that  an  engagement  with  him  and  at 
last  a  marriage  had  exactly  that  quality  of  compromise 
which  distinguishes  the  ways  of  the  wise,  'it  would  be 
the  wrappered  world  almost  at  its  best.  She  saw  herself 
building  up  a  life  upon  that — a  life  restrained,  kindly, 
beautiful,  a  little  pathetic  and  altogether  dignified ;  a 

297 


ANN    VERONICA 

life  of  great  disciplines  and  suppressions  and  extensive 
reserves.  .  .  . 

But  the  Ramage  affair  needed  clearing  up,  of  course; 
it  was  a  flaw  upon  that  project.  She  had  to  explain 
about  and  pay  off  that  forty  pounds.  .  .  . 

Then,  quite  insensibly,  her  queenliness  had  declined. 
She  was  never  able  to  trace  the  changes  her  attitude 
had  undergone,  from  the  time  when  she  believed  her- 
self to  be  the  pampered  Queen  of  Fortune,  the  crown 
of  a  good  man's  love  (and  secretly,  but  nobly,  worship- 
ping some  one  else),  to  the  time  when  she  realized  she 
was  in  fact  (just  a  mannequin  for  her  lover's  imagina- 
tion, and  that  he  cared  no  more  for  the  realities  of  her 
being,  for  the  things  she  felt  and  desired,  for  the  passions 
and  dreams  that  might  move  her,  than  a  child  cares  for 
the  sawdust  in  its  doll.^  She  was  the  actress  his  whim 
had  chosen  to  play  a  passive  part.  .  .  . 

was  one  of  the  most  educational  disillusionments 
in  Ann  Veronica's  career. 

But  did  many  women  get  anything  better? 

This  afternoon,  when  she  was  urgent  to  explain  her 
hampering  and  tainting  complication  with  Ramage,  the 
realization  of  this  alien  quality  in  her  relationship  with 
Manning  became  acute.  Hitherto  it  had  been  qualified 
by  her  conception  of  all  life  as  a  compromise,  by  her 
new  effort  to  be  unexacting  of  life.  But  she  perceived 
that  to  tell  Manning  of  her  Ramage  adventures  as  they 
had  happened  would  be  like  tarring  figures  upon  a  water- 
color.  They  were  in  different  key,  they  had  a  different 
timbre.  How  could  she  tell  him  what  indeed  already 
began  to  puzzle  herself,  why  she  had  borrowed  that 
money  at  all  ?  The  plain  fact  was  that  she  had  grabbed 

298 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

a  bait.  She  had  grabbed!  She  became  less  and  less 
attentive  to  his  meditative,  self-complacent  fragments 
of  talk  as  she  told  herself  this.  Her  secret  thoughts 
made  some  hasty,  half-hearted  excursions  into  the  pos- 
sibility of  telling  the  thing  in  romantic  tones — Ramage 
was  as  a  black  villain,  she  as  a  white,  fantastically 
white,  maiden.  .  .  .  She  doubted  if  Manning  would  even 
listen  to  that.  He  would  refuse  to  listen  and /absolve 
her  unshriven. 

Then  it  came  to  her  with  a  shock,  as  an  extraordinary 
oversight,  that  she  could  never  tell  Manning  about 
Ramage — never. 

She  dismissed  the  idea  of  doing  so.  But  that  still 
left  the  forty  pounds!  .  .  . 

Her  mind  went  on  generalizing.  So  it  would  always 
be  between  herself  and  Manning.  She  saw  her  life 
before  her  robbed  of  all  generous  illusions,  the  wrap- 
pered  life  unwrappered  forever,  vistas  of  dull  responses, 
crises  of  make-believe,  years  of  exacting  mutual  disre- 
gard in  a  misty  garcfen  of  fine  sentiments. 

But  did  any  woman  get  anything  better  from  a  man  ? 
Perhaps  every  woman  conceals  herself  from  a  man  per- 
force! .  .  . 

She  thought  of  Capes.  She  could  not  help  thinking 
of  Capes.  Surely  Capes  was  different.  Capes  looked 
at  one  and  not  over  one,  spoke  to  one,  treated  one  as  a 
visible  concrete  fact.  Capes  saw  her,  felt  for  her,  cared 
for  her  greatly,  even  if  he  did  not  love  her.  Anyhow, 
he  did  not  sentimentalize  her.  And  she  had  been 
doubting  since  that  walk  in  the  Zoological  Gardens 
whether,  indeed,  he  did  simply  care  for  her.  Little 
things,  almost  impalpable,  had  happened  to  justify  that 
so  299 


ANN    VERONICA 

doubt;  something  in  his  manner  had  belied  his  words. 
Did  he  not  look  for  her  in  the  morning  when  she  entered 
— come  very  quickly  to  her?  She  thought  of  him  as 
she  had  last  seen  him  looking  down  the  length  of  the 
laboratory  to  see  her  go.  Why  had  he  glanced  up — • 
quite  in  that  way?  .  .  . 

The  thought  of  Capes  flooded  her  being  like  long- 
veiled  sunlight  breaking  again  through  clouds.  It  came 
to  her  like  a  dear  thing  rediscovered,  that  she  loved 
Capes.  It  came  to  her  that  to  marry  any  one  but  Capes 
was  impossible.  If  she  could  not  marry  him,  she  would 
not  marry  any  one.  She  would  end  this  sham  with 
Manning.  It  ought  never  to  have  begun.  It  was 
cheating,  pitiful  cheating.  And  then  if  some  day  Capes 
wanted  her — saw  fit  to  alter  his  views  upon  friendship. .  .  . 

Dim  possibilities  that  she  would  not  seem  to  look  at 
even  to  herself  gesticulated  in  the  twilight  background 
of  her  mind. 

She  leaped  suddenly  at  a  desperate  resolution,  and 
/  in  one  moment  had  made  it  into  a  newj^jyfA  She  flung 
^-  aside  every  plan  she  had  in  life,  every  discretion.  Of 
course,  why  not?  She  would  be  honest,  anyhow! 

She  turned  her  eyes  to  Manning. 

He  was  sitting  back  from  the  table  now,  with  one 
arm  over  the  back  of  his  green  chair  and  the  other  rest- 
ing on  the  little  table.  He  was  smiling  under  his  heavy 
mustache,  and  his  head  was  a  little  on  one  side  as  he 
looked  at  her. 

"And  what  was  that  dreadful  confession  you  had  to 
make  ?"  he  was  saying.  His  quiet,  kindly  smile  implied 
his  serene  disbelief  in  any  confessible  thing.  Ann  Ve- 
ronica pushed  aside  a  tea-cup  and  the  vestiges  of  her 

300 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

strawberries  and  cream,  and  put  her  elbows  before  her 
on  the  table.  "Mr.  Manning,"  she  said,  "I  have  a  con- 
fession to  make." 

"  I  wish  you  would  use  my  Christian  name,"  he  said. 

She  attended  to  that,  and  then  dismissed  it  as  unim- 
portant. 

Something  in  her  voice  and  manner  conveyed  an  ef- 
fect of  unwonted  gravity  to  him.  For  the  first  time  he 
seemed  to  wonder  what  it  might  be  that  she  had  to 
confess.  His  smile  faded. 

"I  don't  think  our  engagement  can  go  on,"  she 
plunged,  and  felt  exactly  that  loss  of  breath  that  comes 
with  a  dive  into  icy  water. 

"But,  how,"  he  said,  sitting  up  astonished  beyond 
measure,  "not  go  on?" 

"  I  have  been  thinking  while  you  have  been  talking. 
You  see — I  didn't  understand." 

She  stared  hard  at  her  finger-nails.  "It  is  hard  to 
express  one's  self,  but  I  do  want  to  be  honest  with  you. 
When  I  promised  to  marry  you  I  thought  I  could;  I 
thought  it  was  a  possible  arrangement.  I  did  think  it 
could  be  done.  I  admired  your  chivalry.  I  was  grate- 
ful." 

She  paused. 

"Go  on,"  he  said. 

She  moved  her  elbow  nearer  to  him  and  spoke  in  a 
still  lower  tone.  "  I  told  you  I  did  not  love  you." 

"  I  know,"  said  Manning,  nodding  gravely.  "  It  was 
fine  and  brave  of  you." 

"But  there  is  something  more." 

She  paused  again. 

"  I — I  am  sorry —  I  didn't  explain.  These  things 
301 


ANN    VERONICA 

are  difficult.     It  wasn't  clear  to  me  that  I  had  to  ex- 
plain. ...  I  love  some  one  else." 

They  remained  looking  at  each  other  for  three  or 
four  seconds.  Then  Manning  flopped  back  in  his  chair 
and  dropped  his  chin  like  a  man  shot.  There  was  a 
long  silence  between  them. 

"My  God!"  he  said  at  last,  with  tremendous  feeling, 
and  then  again,  "My  God!" 

Now  that  this  thing  was  said  her  mind  was  clear  and 
calm.  She  heard  this  standard  expression  of  a  strong 
soul  wrung  with  a  critical  coldness  that  astonished  her- 
self. She  realized  dimly  that  there  was  no  personal 
thing  behind  his  cry,  that  countless  myriads  of  Man- 
nings had  "My  God!"-ed  with  an  equal  gusto  at  situa- 
tions as  flatly  apprehended.  This  mitigated  her  re- 
morse enormously.  He  rested  his  brow  on  his  hand  and 
conveyed  magnificent  tragedy  by  his  pose. 

"But  why,"  he  said  in  the  gasping  voice  of  one  sub- 
duing an  agony,  and  looked  at  her  from  under  a  pain- 
wrinkled  brow,  "why  did  you  not  tell  me  this  before?" 

"  I  didn't  know —  I  thought  I  might  be  able  to  con- 
trol myself." 

''And  you  can't?"  ^ 

C"  I  don't  think  I  ought  to  control  myself. "3 

"  And  I  have  been  dreaming  and  thinking—" 

"I  am  frightfully  sorry.  ..." 

"But—  This  bolt  from  the  blue!  My  God!  Ann 
Veronica,  you  don't  understand.  This — this  shatters  a 
world!" 

She  tried  to  feel  sorry,  but  her  sense  of  his  immense 
egotism  was  strong  and  clear. 

He  went  on  with  intense  urgency. 
302 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

"Why  did  you  ever  let  me  love  you?  Why  did  you 
ever  let  me  peep  through  the  gates  of  Paradise?  Oh! 
my  God!  I  don't  begin  to  feel  and  realize  this  yet.  It 
seems  to  me  just  talk;  it  seems  to  me  like  the  fancy  of  a 
dream.  Tell  me  I  haven't  heard.  This  is  a  joke  of 
yours. ' '  He  made  his  voice  very  low  and  full,  and  looked 
closely  into  her  face. 

vShe  twisted  her  fingers  tightly.  "  It  isn't  a  joke,*'  she 
said.  "  I  feel  shabby  and  disgraced.  ...  I  ought  never 
to  have  thought  of  it.  Of  you,  I  mean.  ..." 

He  fell  back  in  his  chair  with  an  expression  of  tre- 
mendous desolation.  "My  God!"  he  said  again.  .  .  . 

They  became  aware  of  the  waitress  standing  over 
them  with  book  and  pencil  ready  for  their  bill.  "  Never 
mind  the  bill,"  said  Manning  tragically,  standing  up 
and  thrusting  a  four-shilling  piece  into  her  hand,  and 
turning  a  broad  back  on  her  astonishment.  "Let  us 
walk  across  the  Park  at  least,"  he  said  to  Ann  Veronica. 
"Just  at  present  my  mind  simply  won't  take  hold  of  this 
at  all.  ...  I  tell  you — never  mind  the  bill.  Keep  it! 
Keep  it!" 

§  6 

They  walked  a  long  way  that  afternoon.  They  crossed 
the  Park  to  the  westward,  and  then  turned  back  and 
walked  round  the  circle  about  the  Royal  Botanical 
Gardens  and  then  southwardly  toward  Waterloo.  They 
trudged  and  talked,  and  Manning  struggled,  as  he  said, 
to  "get  the  hang  of  it  all." 

It  was  a  long,  meandering  talk,  stupid,  shameful,  and 
unavoidable.  Ann  Veronica  was  apologetic  to  the 

303 


ANN    VERONICA 

bottom  of  her  soul.  At  tjhe  same  time  she  was  wildly 
exultant  at  the  resolution  .she  had  taken,  the  end  she 
had  made  to  her  blunder.  ( She  had  only  to  get  through 
this,  to  solace  Manning  as  much  as  she  could,  to  put  such 
clumsy  plasterings  on  his  wounds  as  were  possible,  and 
then,  anyhow,  she  would  be  free — free  to  put  her  fate 
to  the  test.  )  She  made  a  few  protests,  a  few  excuses  for 
her  action  in  accepting  him,  a  few  lame  explanations, 
but  he  did  not  heed  them  or  care  for  them.  Then  she 
realized  that  it  was  her  business  to  let  Manning  talk  and 
impose  his  own  interpretations  upon  the  situation  so  far 
as  he  was  concerned.  She  did  her  best  to  do  this.  But 
about  his  unknown  rival  he  was  acutely  curious. 

He  made  her  tell  him  the  core  of  the  difficulty. 

"I  cannot  say  who  he  is,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "but 
he  is  a  married  man.  ...  No !  I  do  not  even  know  that 
he  cares  for  me.  It  is  no  good  going  into  that.  Only 
I  just  want  him.  I  just  want  him,  and  no  one  else  will 
do.  It  is  no  good  arguing  about  a  thing  like  that." 

"But  you  thought  you  could  forget  him." 

"  I  suppose  I  must  have  thought  so.  I  didn't  under- 
stand. Now  I  do." 

"By  God!"  said  Manning,  making  the  most  of  the 
word,  "I  suppose  it's  fate.  Fate!  You  are  so  frank, 
so  splendid! 

"  I'm  taking  this  calmly  now,"  he  said,  almost  as  if  he 
apologized,  "because  I'm  a  little  stunned." 

Then  he  asked,  " Tell  me!  has  this  man,  has  he  dared  to 
make  love  to  you  ?" 

Ann  Veronica  had  a  vicious  moment.  "I  wish  he 
had,"  she  said. 

"  But—" 

304 


THE   SAPPHIRE   RING 

The  long  inconsecutive  conversation  by  that  time  was 
getting  on  her  nerves.  "  When  one  wants  a  thing  more 
than  anything  else  in  the  world,"  she  said  with  outrageous 
frankness,  "one  naturally  wishes  one  had  it." 

She  shocked  him  by  that.  She  shattered  the  edifice 
he  was  building  up  of  himself  as  a  devoted  lover,  waiting 
only  his  chance  to  win  her  from  a  hopeless  and  con- 
suming passion. 

"Mr.  Manning,"  she  said,  "I  warned  you  not  to 
idealize  me.  Men  ought  not  to  idealize  any  woman. 
We  aren't  worth  it.  JftTe've  done  nothing  to  deserve  it. 
And  it  hampers  us.  (You  don't  know  the  thoughts  we 
have ;  the  things  we  can  do  and  say.  I  You  are  a  sister- 
less  man;  you  have  never  heard  the  ordinary  talk  that 
goes  on  at  a  girls'  boarding-school." 

"Oh!  but  you  are  splendid  and  open  and  fearless! 
As  if  I  couldn't  allow!  What  are  all  these  little  things? 
Nothing!  Nothing!  You  can't  sully  yourself.  You 
can't!  I  tell  you  frankly  you  may  break  off  your  en- 
gagement to  me — I  shall  hold  myself  still  engaged  to  you, 
yours  just  the  same.  As  for  this  infatuation — it's  like 
some  obsession,  some  magic  thing  laid  upon  you.  It's 
not  you — not  a  bit.  It's  a  thing  that's  happened  to 
you.  It  is  like  some  accident.  I  don't  care.  In  a  sense 
I  don't  care.  It  makes  no  difference.  .  .  .  All  the  same, 
I  wish  I  had  that  fellow  by  the  throat!  Just  the  virile^, 
unregenerate  man  in  me  wishes  that.  .  .  . 

"  I  suppose  I  should  let  go  if  I  had. 

"You  know,"  he  went  on,  "this  doesn't  seem  to  me 

to  end  anything.     I'm  rather  a  persistent  person.     I'm 

the  sort  of  dog,  if  you  turn  it  out  of  the  room  it  lies  down 

on  the  mat  allihe  door.     I'm  not  a  lovesick  boy.     I'm 

305 


ANN    VERONICA 

a  man,  and  I  know  what  I  mean.  It's  a  tremendous 
blow,  of  course  —  but  it  doesn't  kill  me.  And  the  situa- 
tion it  makes!  —  the  situation!" 

Thus  Manning,  egotistical,  inconsecutive,  unreal. 
And  Ann  Veronica  walked  beside  him,  trying  in  vain  to 
soften  her  heart  to  him  by  the  thought  of  how  she  had 
ill-jised  him,  and  all  the  time,  as  her  feet  and  mind  grew 
weary  together,  rejoicing  more  and  more  that  at  the  cost 
of  this  one  interminable  walk  she  escaped  the  prospect 
of  —  what  was  it?  —  "Ten  thousand  days,  ten  thousand 
nights"  in  his  company.  Whatever  happened  she  need 
never  return  to  that  possibility. 

"For  me,"  Manning  went  on,  "this  isn't  final.  In  a 
sense  it  alters  nothing.  I  shall  still  wear  your  favor  — 
even  if  it  is  a  stolen  and  forbidden  favor  —  in  my  casque. 
...  I  shall  still  believe  in  you.  Trust  you." 

He  repeated  several  times  that  he  would  trust  her, 
though  it  remained  obscure  just  exactly  where  the  trust 
came  in. 

"Look  here,"  he  cried  out  of  a  silence,  with  a  sud- 
den flash  of  understanding,  "did  you  mean  to  throw 
me  over  when  you  came  out  with  me  this  afternoon?" 

Ann  Veronica  hesitated,  and  with  a  startled  mind 
realized  the  truth.  "No,"  she  answered,  reluctantly. 

"Very  well,"  said  Manning.  "Then  I  don't  take  this 
as  final.  That's  all.  I've  bored  you  or  something.  .  .  . 
You  think  you  love  this  other  man!  No  doubt  you  do 
love  him. 


He    became    darkly    prophetic.     He    thrust    out    a 
rhetorical  hand. 

"I  will  make  you  love  me!     Until  he  has  faded  — 
faded  into  a  memory.  *  .  ." 

306 


THE   SAPPHIRE    RING 

He  saw  her  into  the  train  at  Waterloo,  and  stood,  a 
tall,  grave  figure,  with  hat  upraised,  as  the  carriage 
moved  forward  slowly  and  hid  him.  Ann  Veronica  sat 
back  with  a  sigh  of  relief.  Manning  might  go  on  now 
idealizing  her  as  much  as  he  liked.  She  was  no  longer 
a  confederate  in  that.  He  might  go  on  as  the  devoted 
lover  until  he  tired.  She  had  done  forever  with  the 
Age  of  Chivalry,  and  her  own  base  adaptations  of  its 
traditions  to  the  compromising  life.  She  was  honest 
again. 

But  when  she  turned  her  thoughts  to  Morningside 
Park  she  perceived  the  tangled  skein  of  life  was  now  to 
be  further  complicated  by  his  romantic  importunity. 


CHAPTER   THE    FOURTEENTH 

THE    COLLAPSE    OP   THE    PENITENT 
§    I 

SPRING  had  held  back  that  year  until  the  dawn  of 
May,  and  then  spring  and  summer  came  with  a 
rush  together.  Two  days  after  this  conversation  be- 
tween Manning  and  Ann  Veronica,  Capes  came  into  the 
laboratory  at  lunch-time  and  found  her  alone  there, 
standing  by  the  open  window,  and  not  even  pretending 
to  be  doing  anything.  He  came  in  with  his  hands  in  his 
trousers  pockets  and  a  general  air  of  depression  in  his 
bearing.  He  was  engaged  in  detesting  Manning  and 
himself  in  almost  equal  measure.  His  face  brightened 
at  the  sight  of  her,  and  he  came  toward  her. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  he  asked. 

"Nothing,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  stared  over  her 
shoulder  out  of  the  window. 

"So  am  I.  ...  Lassitude?" 

"I  suppose  so." 

"7  can't  work." 

"Nor  I,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

Pause. 

"  It's  the  spring,"  he  said.  "  It's  the  warming  up  of 
the  year,  the  coming  of  the  light  mornings,  the  way  in 

308 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  THE  PENITENT 

which  everything  begins  to  run  about  and  begin  new 
things.  Work  becomes  distasteful;  one  thinks  of  holi- 
days. This  year — I've  got  it  badly.  I  want  to  get 
away.  I've  never  wanted  to  get  away  so  much." 

"  Where  do  you  go  ?" 

"Oh!— Alps." 

"Climbing?" 

"Yes." 

"That's  rather  a  fine  sort  of  holiday!" 

He  made  no  answer  for  three  or  four  seconds. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  want  to  get  away.  I  feel  at  mo- 
ments as  though  I  could  bolt  for  it.  ...  Silly,  isn't  it? 
Undisciplined." 

He  went  to  the  window  and  fidgeted  with  the  blind, 
looking  out  to  where  the  tree-tops  of  Regent's  Park 
showed  distantly  over  the  houses.  He  turned  round 
toward  her  and  found  her  looking  at  him  and  standing 
very  still. 

"  It's  the  stir  of  spring,"  he  said. 

"I  believe  it  is." 

She  glanced  out  of  the  window,  and  the  distant  trees 
were  a  froth  of  hard  spring  green  and  almond  blossom. 
She  formed  &  wild  resolution,  and,  lest  she  should  waver 
from  it,  she  set  about  at  once  to  realize  it.  "  I've  broken 
off  my  engagement,"  she  said,  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone, 
and  found  her  heart  thumping  in  her  neck.  He  moved 
slightly,  and  she  went  on,  with  a  slight  catching  of  her 
breath :  "  It's  a  bother  and  disturbance,  but  you  see — ' 
She  had  to  go  through  with  it  now,  because  she  could 
think  of  nothing  but  her  preconceived  words.  Her 
voice  was  weak  and  flat.  "  I've  fallen  in  love." 

He  never  helped  her  by  a  sound. 
309 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  I — I  didn't  love  the  man  I  was  engaged  to,"  she  said. 

She  met  his  eyes  for  a  moment,  and  could  not  inter- 
pret their  expression.  They  struck  her  as  cold  and  in- 
different. 

Her  heart  failed  her  and  her  resolution  became  water. 
She  remained  standing  stiffly,  unable  even  to  move. 
She  could  not  look  at  him  through  an  interval  that 
seemed  to  her  a  vast  gulf  of  time.  But  she  felt  his  lax 
figure  become  rigid. 

At  last  his  voice  came  to  release  her  tension. 

"I  thought  you  weren't  keeping  up  to  the  mark. 
You —  It's  jolly  of  you  to  confide  in  me.  Still — " 
Then,  with  incredible  and  obviously  deliberate  stupidity, 
and  a  voice  as  flat  as  her  own,  he  asked,  "Who  is  the 
man?" 

Her  spirit  raged  within  her  at  the  dumbness,  the 
paralysis  that  had  fallen  upon  her.  Grace,  confidence, 
the  power  of  movement  even,  seemed  gone  from  her. 
A  fever  of  shame  ran  through  her  being.  Horrible 
doubts  assailed  her.  She  sat  down  awkwardly  and  help- 
lessly on  one  of  the  little  stools  by  her  table  and  cov- 
ered her  face  with  her  hands. 

" Can't  you  see  how  things  are?"  she  said. 


§   2 

Before  Capes  could  answer  her  in  any  way  the  door 
at  the  end  of  the  laboratory  opened  noisily  and  Miss 
Klegg  appeared.  She  went  to  her  own  table  and  sat 
down.  At  the  sound  of  the  door  Ann  Veronica  uncov- 
ered a  tearless  face,  and  with  one  swift  movement  as- 

310 


THE   COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PENITENT 

sumed  a  conversational  attitude.  Things  hung  for  a 
moment  in  an  awkward  silence. 

"You  see,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  staring  before  her  at 
the  window-sash,  "that's  the  form  my  question  takes 
at  the  present  time." 

Capes  had  not  quite  the  same  power  of  recovery.  He 
stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  looking  at  Miss 
Klegg's  back.  His  face  was  white.  "It's — it's  a  dif- 
ficult question."  He  appeared  to  be  paralyzed  by 
abstruse  acoustic  calculations.  Then,  very  awkwardly, 
he  took  a  stool  and  placed  it  at  the  end  of  Ann  Veronica's 
table,  and  sat  down.  He  glanced  at  Miss  Klegg  again, 
and  spoke  quickly  and  furtively,  with  eager  eyes  on 
Ann  Veronica's  face. 

"I  had  a  faint  idea  once  that  things  were  as  you  say 
they  are,  but  the  affair  of  the  ring — of  the  unexpected 
ring — puzzled  me.  Wish  she'1 — he  indicated  Miss 
Klegg's  back  with  a  nod — "was  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.  ...  I  would  like  to  talk  to  you  about  this — soon. 
If  you  don't  think  it  would  be  a  social  outrage,  perhaps 
I  might  walk  with  you  to  your  railway  station." 

"I  will  wait,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  still  not  looking 
at  him,  "and  we  will  go  into  Regent's  Park.  No — you 
shall  come  with  me  to  Waterloo." 

"Right!"  he  said,  and  hesitated,  and  then  got  up  and 
went  into  the  preparation-room. 

§3 

For  a  time  they  walked  in  silence  through  the  back 
streets  that  lead  southward  from  the  College.  Capes 
bore  a  face  of  infinite  perplexity. 

3" 


ANN    VERONICA 

"The  thing  I  feel  most  disposed  to  say,  Miss  Stanley," 
he  began  at  last,  "is  that  this  is  very  sudden." 

"It's  been /coming  on :  since  first  I  came  into  the 
laboratory." 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  asked,  bluntly. 

"You!"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

•  The  sense  of  publicity,  of  people  coming  and  going 
about  them,  kept  them  both  unemotional.  And  neither 
had  any  of  that  theatricality  which  demands  gestures  and 
facial  expression. 

"I  suppose  you  know  I  like  you  tremendously?"  he 
pursued. 

"You  told  me  that  in  the  Zoological  Gardens." 

She  found  her  muscles  a-tremble.  But  there  was 
nothing  in  her  bearing  that  a  passer-by  would  have  noted, 
to  tell  of  the  excitement  that  possessed  her. 

"I" — he  seemed  to  have  a  difficulty  with  the  word — 
"I  love  you.  I've  told  you  that  practically  already. 
But  I  can  give  it  its  name  now.  You  needn't  be  in  any 
doubt  about  it.  I  tell  you  that  because  it  puts  us  on  a 
footing.  ..." 

They  went  on  for  a  time  without  another  word. 

" But  don't  you  know  about  me?"  he  said  at  last. 

"Something.     Not  much." 

"  I'm  a  married  man.  And  my  wife  won't  live  with 
me  for  reasons  that  I  think  most  women  would  consider 
sound.  ...  Or  I  should  have  made  love  to  you  long 
ago." 

There  came  a  silence  again. 

"I  don't  care,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"But  if  you  knew  anything  of  that — " 

"I  did.     It  doesn't  matter." 

312 


THE   COLLAPSE   OF    THE    PENITENT 

"Why  did  you  tell'  me?  I  thought — I  thought  we 
were  going  to  be  friends." 

He  was  suddenly  resentful.  He  seemed  to  charge 
her  with  the  ruin  of  their  situation.  "Why  on  earth 
did  you  tell  me?"  he  cried. 

"I  couldn't  help  it.     It  was  an  impulse.     I  had  to." 

"But  it  changes  things.     I  thought  you  understood." 

"I  had  to,"  she  repeated.  "I  was  sick  of  the  make- 
believe.  I  don't  care!  I'm  glad  I  did.  I'm  glad  I  did." 

"Look  here!"  said  Capes,  "what  on^arth  do  you 
want  ?  What  do  you  think  we  can  do  ?  (Don't  you  know 
what  men  are!  and  what  life  is  ? — to  come  to  me  and  talk 
to  me  like  this!" 

"I  know — something,  anyhow.  But  I  don't  care; 
I  haven't  a  spark  of  shame.  I  don't  see  any  good  in 
life  if  it  hasn't  got  you  in  it.  I  wanted  you  to  know. 
And  now  you  know.  And  the  fences  are  down  for  good. 
You  can't  look  me  in  the  eyes  and  say  you  don't  care  for 
me." 

"I've  told  you,"  he  said. 

"Very  well,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  an  air  of  con- 
cluding the  discussion. 

They  walked  side  by  side  for  a  time. 

"  In  that  laboratory  one  gets  to  disregard  these  pas- 
sions," began  Capes.  "Men  are  curious  animals,  with 
a  trick  of  falling  in  love  readily  with  girls  about  your 
age.  One  has  to  train  one's  self  not  to.  I've  accus- 
tomed myself  to  think  of  you — as  if  you  were  like  every 
other  girl  who  works  at  the  schools — as  something  quite 
outside  these  possibilities.  If  only  out  of  loyalty  to  co- 
education one  has  to  do  that*  Apart  from  everything 
else,  this  meeting  of  ours  is  a  breach  of  a  good  rule." 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  Rules  are  for  every  day,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  " This 
is  not  every  day.  This  is  something  above  all 
rules." 

"For  you." 

"Not  for  you?1' 

"No.  No;  I'm  going  to  stick  to  the  rules.  .  .  .  It's 
odd,  but  nothing  but  cliche  seems  to  meet  this  case. 
You've  placed  me  in  a  very  exceptional  position,  Miss 
Stanley."  The  note  of  his  own  voice  exasperated  him. 
"Oh,  damn!"  he  said. 

She  made  no  answer,  and  for  a  time  he  debated  some 
problems  with  himself. 

"No!"  he  said  aloud  at  last. 

"The  plain  common-sense  of  the  case,"  he  said,  "is 
that  we  can't  possibly  be  lovers  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
That,  I  think,  is  manifest.  You  know,  I've  done  no 
work  at  all  this  afternoon.  I've  been  smoking  cigarettes 
in  the  preparation-room  and  thinking  this  out.  We 
can't  be  lovers  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  we  can  be  great 
and  intimate  friends." 

"We  are,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"You've  interested  me  enormously.  .  .  ." 

He  paused  with  a  sense  of  ineptitude.  "  I  want  to  be 
your  friend,"  he  said.  "I  said  that  at  the  Zoo,  and  I 
mean  it.  Let  us  be  friends — as  near  and  close  as  friends 
can  be." 

Ann  Veronica  gave  him  a  pallid  profile. 

"What  is  the  good  of  pretending?"  she  said. 

"We  don't  pretend." 

"We  do.  Love  is  one  thing  and  friendship  quite  an- 
other. Because  I'm  younger  than  you.  .  .  .  I've  got 
imagination.  ...  I  know  what  I  am  talking  about.  Mr. 

3M 


THE   COLLAPSE    OF   THE   PENITENT 

Capes,  do  you  think  ...  do  you  think  I  don't  know  the 
meaning  of  love?" 


§  4 

Capes  made  no  answer  for  a  time. 

"  My  mind  is  full  of  confused  stuff,"  he  said  at  length. 
"I've  been  thinking — all  the  afternoon.  Oh,  and 
weeks  and  months  of.  thought  and  feeling  there  are 
bottled  up  too.  .  .  (I  feel  a  mixture  of  beast  and  uncle. 
I  feel  like  a  fraudulent  trustee.  Every  rule  is  against} 
mef-  Why  did  I  let  you  begin  this  ?  I  might  have 
told—" 

"  I  don't  see  that  you  could  help — " 

"I  might  have  helped—" 

"You  couldn't." 

"I  ought  to  have — all  the  same. 

"I  wonder,"  he  said,  and  went  off  at  a  tangent. 
"You  know  about  my  scandalous  past?" 

"Very  little.     It  doesn't  seem  to  matter.     Does  it?" 

"I  think  it  does.     Profoundly." 

"How?" 

"  It  prevents  our  marrying.  It  forbids — all  sorts 
of  things." 

"It  can't  prevent  our  loving." 

"I'm  afraid  it  can't.  But,  by  Jove!  it's  going  to 
make  our  loving  a  fiercely  abstract  thing." 

"You  are  separated  from  your  wife?" 

"Yes,  but  do  you  know  how?" 

"Not  exactly." 

"Why  on  earth — ?  A  man  ought  to  be  labelled. 
You  see,  I'm  separated  from  my  wife.  But  she  doesn't 


ANN   VERONICA 

and  won't  divorce  me.  You  don't  understand  the  fix 
I  am  in.  And  you  don't  know  what  led  to  our  separa- 
tion. And,  in  fact,  all  round  the  problem  you  don't 
know  and  I  don't  see  how  I  could  possibly  have  told  you 
before.  I  wanted  to,  that  day  in  the  Zoo.  But  I  trusted 
to  that  ring  of  yours." 

"Poor  old  ring!"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"I  ought  never  have  gone  to  the  Zoo,  I  suppose. 
I  asked  you  to  go.  (But  a  man  is  a  mixed  creatureX  .  . 
I  wanted  the  time  with  you.  I  wanted  it  badly." 

"Tell  me  about  yourself,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"To  begin  with,  I  was — I  was  in  the  divorce  court. 
I  was — I  was  a  co-respondent.  You  understand  that 
term?" 

Ann  Veronica  smiled  faintly.  "A  modern  girl  does 
understand  these  terms.  She  reads  novels — and  history 
— and  all  sorts  of  things.  Did  you  really  doubt  if  I  knew  ? " 

"No.     But  I   don't  suppose  you   can  understand." 

"I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't." 

"To  know  things  by  name  is  one  thing;  to  know 
them  by  seeing  them  and  feeling  them  and  being  them 
quite  another.  That  is  where  life  takes  advantage 
of  youth.  You  don't  understand." 

"Perhaps  I  don't." 

"  You  don't.  That's  the  difficulty.  If  I  told  you  the 
facts,  I  expect,  since  you  are  in  love  with  me,  you'd 
explain  the  whole  business  as  being  very  fine  and 
honorable  for  me — the  Higher  Morality,  or  something 
of  that  sort.  ...  It  wasn't." 

"I  don't  deal  very  much,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "in 
the  Higher  Morality,  or  the  Higher  Truth,  or  any  of 
those  things." 

316 


THE   COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PENITENT 

"Perhaps  you  don't.  But  a  human  being  who  is 
young  and  clean,  as  you  are,  is  apt  to  ennoble — or 
explain  away." 

"I've  had  a  biological  training.  I'm  a  hard  young 
woman." 

"Nice  clean  hardness,  anyhow.  I  think  you  are 
hard.  There's  something — something  adult  about  you. 
I'm  talking  to  you  now  as  though  you  had  all  the 
wisdom  and  charity  in  the  world.  I'm  going  to  tell 
you  things  plainly.  Plainly.  It's  best.  And  then  you 
can  go  home  and  think  things  over  before  we  talk  again. 
I  want  you  to  be  clear  what  you're  really  and  truly  up 
to,  anyhow." 

"  I  don't  mind  knowing,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"It's  precious  unromantic." 

"Well,  tell  me." 

"I  married  pretty  young,"  said  Capes.  "I've  got — 
I  have  to  tell  you  this  to  make  myself  clearH-a  streak 
of  ardent  animal  in  my  composition.)  I  married — I 
married  a  woman  whom  I  still  think  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  persons  in  the  world.  She  is  a  year  or  so  older 
than  I  am,  and  she  is,  well,  of  a  very  serene  and  proud 
and  dignified  temperament.  If  you  met  her  you  would, 
I  am  certain,  think  her  as  fine  as  I  do.  She  has  never 
done  a  really  ignoble  thing  that  I  know  of — never. 
I  met  her  when  we  were  both  very  young,  as  young  as 
you  are.  I  loved  her  and  made  love  to  her,  and  I  don't 
think  she  quite  loved  me  back  in  the  same  way." 

He  paused  for  a  time.     Ann  Veronica  said  nothing. 

"These  are  the  sort  of  things  that  aren't  supposed 
to  happen.  They  leave  them  out  of  novels — these 
mcpmpatibilities. Young  people ~^fgnoTe them 

3*7 


ANN    VERONICA 

they  find  themselves  up  against  them.  My  wife  doesn't 
understand,  doesn't  understand  now.  She  despises  me, 
I  suppose. . . .  We  married,  and  for  a  time  we  were  happy. 
She  was  fine  and  tender.  I  worshipped  her  and  sub- 
dued myself." 

He  left  off  abruptly.  "Do  you  understand  what  I 
am  talking  about?  It's  no  good  if  you  don't." 

"I  think  so,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  and  colored.  "In 
fact,  yes,  I  do." 

"Do  you  think  of  these  things — these  matters — as 
belonging  to  our  Higher  Nature  or  our  Lower?" 

"I  don't  deal  in  Higher  Things,  I  tell  you,"  said 
Ann  Veronica,  "or  Lower,  for  the  matter  of  that.  I 
don't  classify."  She  hesitated.  "  Flesh  and  flowers  are 
all  alike  to  me." 

"That's  the  comfort  of  you.  Well,  after  a  time 
there  came  a  fever  in  my  blood.  Don't  think  it  was 
anything  better  than  fever — or  a  bit  beautiful.  It 
wasn't.  Quite  soon,  after  we  were  married — it  was  just 
within  a  year — I  formed  a  friendship  with  the  wife  of 
a  friend,  a  woman  eight  years  older  than  myself.  .  .  . 
It  wasn't  anything  splendid,  you  know.  It  was  just 
a  shabby,  stupid,  furtive  business  that  began  between 
us.  Like  stealing.  We  dressed  it  in  a  little  music.  .  .  . 
I  want  you  to  understand  clearly  that  I  was  indebted 
to  the  man  in  many  small  ways.  I  was  mean  to  him.  .  .  . 
It  was  the  gratification  of  an  immense  necessity.  We 
were  two  people  with  a  craving.  We  felt  like  thieves. 
We  were  thieves.  .  .  .  We  liked  each  other  well  enough. 
Well,  my  friend  found  us  out,  and  would  give  no 
quarter.  He  divorced  her.  How  do  you  like  the 
story?" 


THE   COLLAPSE    OF   THE   PENITENT 

"Go  on,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  a  little  hoarsely;  "tell 
me  all  of  it." 

"  My  wife  was  astounded — wounded  beyond  measure. 
She  thought  me — filthy.  All  her  pride  raged  at  me. 
One  particularly  humiliating  thing  came  out — humiliat- 
ing for  me.  There  was  a  second  co-respondent.  I 
hadn't  heard  of  him  before  the  trial.  I  don't  know  why 
that  should  be  so  acutely  humiliating.  There's  no 
logic  in  these  things.  It  was." 

"Poor  you!"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"My  wife  refused  absolutely  to  have  anything  more 
to  do  with  me.  She  could  hardly  speak  to  me;  she  in- 
sisted relentlessly  upon  a  separation.  She  had  money 
of  her  own — much  more  than  I  have — and  there  was 
no  need  to  squabble  about  that.  She  has  given  herself 
up  to  social  work." 

"Well—" 

"That's  all.  Practically  all.  And  yet—  Wait  a 
little,  you'd  better  have  every  bit  of  it.  One  doesn't 
go  about  with  these  passions  allayed  simply  because 
they  have  made  wreckage  and  a  scandal.  There  one  is! 
The  same  stuff  still!  One  has  a  craving  in  one's  blood, 
a  craving  roused,  cut  off  from  its  redeeming  and  guiding 
emotional  side.  A  man  has  more  freedom  to  do  evil 
than  a  woman.  Irregularly,  in  a  quite  inglorious  and 
unromantic  way,  you  know,  I  am  a  vicious  man.  That's 
— that's  my  private  life.  Until  the  last  few  months. 
It  isn't  what  I  have  been  but  what  I  am.  I  haven't 
taken  much  account  of  it  until  now.  My  honor  has  been 
in  my  scientific  work  and  public  discussion  and  the 
things  I  write.  Lots  of  us  are  like  that.  But,  you  see, 
I'm  smirched.  For  the  sort  of  love-making  you  think 


ANN    VERONICA 

about.  I've  muddled  all  this  business.  I've  had  my 
time  and  lost  my  chances.  I'm  damaged  goods.  And 
you're  as  clean  as  fire.  You  come  with  those  clear  eyes 
of  yours,  as  valiant  as  an  angel.  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  abruptly. 

"Well?"  she  said. 

"That's  all." 

"It's  so  strange  to  think  of  you — troubled  by  such 
things.  I  didn't  think — •  I  don't  know  what  I  thought. 
Suddenly  all  this  makes  you  human.  Makes  you 
real." 

"  But  don't  you  see  how  I  must  stand  to  you  ?  Don't 
you  see  how  it  bars  us  from  being  lovers —  You  can't 
— at  first.  You  must  think  it  over.  It's  all  outside 
the  world  of  your  experience." 

"I  don't  think  it  makes  a  rap  of  difference,  except 
for  one  thing.  I  love  you  more.  I've  wanted  you — 
always.  I  didn't  dream,  not  even  in  my  wildest  dream- 
ing, that — you  might  have  any  need  of  me." 

He  made  a  little  noise  in  his  throat  as  if  something 
had  cried  out  within  him,  and  for  a  time  they  were  both 
too  full  for  speech. 

They  were  going  up  the  slope  into  Waterloo  Station. 

"You  go  home  and  think  of  all  this,"  he  said,  "and 
talk  about  it  to-morrow.  Don't,  don't  say  anything 
now,  not  anything.  As  for  loving  you,  I  do.  I  do — 
with  all  my  heart.  It's  no  good  hiding  it  any  more.  I 
could  never  have  talked  to  you  like  this,  forgetting 
everything  that  parts  us,  forgetting  even  your  age,  if 
I  did  not  love  you  utterly.  (If  I  were  a  clean,  free  man — 
We'll  have  to  talk  of  all  these  things.  Thank  goodness 
there's  plenty  of  opportunity!  And  we  two  can  talk. 

320 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  THE  PENITENT 

Anyhow,  now  you've  begun  it,  there's  nothing  to  keep 
us  in  all  this  from  being  the  best  friends  in  the  world. 
And  talking  of  every  conceivable  thing.  Is  there?" 

"  Nothing,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with  a  radiant  face. 

"Before  this  there  was  a  sort  of  restraint — a  make- 
believe.  It's  gone." 

"It's  gone." 

"Friendship  and  love  being  separate  things.  And 
that  confounded  engagement!" 

"Gone!" 

They  came  upon  a  platform,  and  stood  before  her 
Comp  ar  tment . 

He  took  her  hand  and  looked  into  her  eyes  and  spoke, 
divided  against  himself,  in  a  voice  that  was  forced  and 
insincere. 

"  "I  shall  be  very  glad  to  have  you  for  a  friend,"  he 
said,  "loving  friend.  I  had  never  dreamed  of  such  a 
friend  as  you/' 

She  smiled,  sure  of  herself  beyond  any  pretending, 
into  his  troubled  eyes.  Hadn't  they  settled  that 
already  ? 

"  I  want  you  as  a  friend,"  he  persisted,  almost  as  if  he 
disputed  something. 

85 

The  next  morning  she  waited  in  the  laboratory  at 
the  lunch-hour  in  the  reasonable  certainty  that  he 
would  come  to  her. 

"Well,  you  have  thought  it  over?"  he  said,  sitting 
down  beside  her. 

"  I've  been  thinking  of  you  all  night,"  she  answered. 
321 


ANN    VERONICA     • 

"Well?" 

"I  don't  care  a  rap  for  all  these  things." 

He  said  nothing  for  a  space. 

"I  don't  see  there's  any  getting  away  from  the  fact 
that  you  and  I  love  each  other,"  he  said,  slowly.  "  So 
far  you've  got  me  and  I  you.  .  .  .  You've  got  me.  I'm 
like  a  creature  just  wakened  up.  My  eyes  are  open  to 
you.  I  keep  on  thinking  of  you.  I  keep  on  thinking 
of  little  details  and  aspects  of  your  voice,  your  eyes, 
the  way  you  walk,  the  way  your  hair  goes  back  from 
the  side  of  your  forehead.  I  believe  I  have  always  been 
in  love  with  you.  Always.  Before  ever  I  knew  you." 

She  sat  motionless,  with  her  hand  tightening  over  the 
edge  of  the  table,  and  he,  too,  said  no  more.  She  be- 
gan to  tremble  violently. 

He  stood  up  abruptly  and  went  to  the  window. 

"We  have,"  he  said,  "to  be  the  utmost  friends." 

She  stood  up  and  held  her  arms  toward  him.  "  I 
want  you  to  kiss  me,"  she  said. 

He  gripped  the  window-sill  behind  him. 

"If  I  do,"  he  said.  ...  "No!  I  want  to  do  without 
that.  I  want  to  do  without  that  for  a  time.  I  want 
to  give  you  time  to  think.  I  am  a  man — of  a  sort  of 
experience.  You  are  a  girl  with  very  little.  Just  sit 
down  on  that  stool  again  and  let's  talk  of  this  in  cold 
blood.  People  of  your  sort —  I  don't  want  the  in- 
stincts to — to  rush  our  situation.  Are  you  sure  what 
it  is  you  want  of  me  ?" 

"  I  want  you.  I  want  you  to  be  my  lover.  (I  want 
to  give  myself  to  you.  ;  I  want  to  be  whatever"  I  can 
to  you."  She  paused  for  a  moment.  "  Is  that  plain  ?" 
she  asked. 

322 


THE   COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PENITENT 

"  If  I  didn't  love  you  better  than  myself,"  said  Capes, 
"  I  wouldn't  fence  like  this  with  you. 

"  I  am  convinced  you  haven't  thought  this  out,"  he 
went  on.  "You  do  not  know  what  such  a  relation 
means.  We  are  in  love.  Our  heads  swim  with  the 
thought  of  being  together.  But  what  can  we  do? 
Here  am  I,  fixed  to  respectability  and  this  laboratory; 
you're  living  at  home.  It  means  .  .  .  just  furtive 
meetings." 

"I  don't  care  how  we  meet,"  she  said. 

"  It  will  spoil  your  life." 

"It  will  make  it.  I  want  you.  I  am  clear  I  want 
you.  -You  are  different  from  all  the  world  for  me) 
You  can  think  all  round  me.  You  are  the  one  person 
I  can  understand  and  feel — feel  right  with.  I  don't 
idealize  you.  Don't  imagine  that.  It  isn't  because 
you're  good,  but  because  I  may  be  rotten  bad;  and 
there's  something — something  living  and  understanding 
in  you.  Something  that  is  born  anew  each  time  we 
meet,  and  pines  when  we  are  separated.  You  see,  I'm 
selfish.  I'm  rather  scornful.  I  think  too  much  about 
myself.  You're  the  only  person  I've  really  given  good, 
straight,  unselfish  thought  to.  I'm  making  a  mess  of 
my  life — unless  you  come  in  g««*  tfffi  **  *  n<yi  In 
you— if™you~~can  love  me — there  ip  salvation.  Salva- 
tion. I  know  what  I  am  doing  betted  than  you  do. 
Think — think  of  that  engagement!" 

Their  talk  had  come  to  eloquent  silences  that  con- 
tradicted all  he  had  to  say. 

She  stood  up  before  him,  smiling  faintly. 

"  I  think  we've  exhausted  this  discussion,"  she  said. 

"  I  think  we  have,"  he  answered,  gravely,  and  took 
323 


ANN    VERONICA 

her  in  his  arms,  and  smoothed  her  hair  from  her  fore- 
head, and  very  tenderly  kissed  her  lips. 


§  6 

They  spent  the  next  Sunday  in  Richmond  Park,  and 
mingled  the  happy  sensation  of  being  together  unin- 
terruptedly through  the  long  sunshine  of  a  summer's 
day  with  the  ample  discussion  of  their  position.  "  This 
has  all  the  clean  freshness  of  spring  and  youth,"  said 
Capes;  "it  is  love  with  the  down  on;  it  is  like  the  glit- 
ter of  dew  in  the  sunlight  to  be  lovers  such  as  we  are, 
with  no  more  than  one  warm  kiss  between  us.  I  love 
everything  to-day,  and  all  of  you,  but  I  love  this,  this — 
this  innocence  upon  us  most  of  all. 

"You  can't  imagine,"  he  said,  "what  a  beastly  thing 
a  furtive  love  affair  can  be. 

"This  isn't  furtive,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"Not  a  bit  of  it.  And  we  won't  make  it  so.  ...  We 
mustn't  make  it  so." 

They  loitered  under  trees,  they  sat  on  mossy  banks, 
they  gossiped  on  friendly  benches,  they  came  back  to 
lunch  at  the  "Star  and  Garter,"  and  talked  their  after- 
noon away  in  the  garden  that  looks  out  upon  the  cres- 
cent of  the  river.  They  had  a  universe  to  talk  about 
—two  universes. 

"What  are  we  going  to  do  ?"  said  Capes,  with  his  eyes 
on  the  broad  distances  beyond  the  ribbon  of  the  river. 

"I  will  do  whatever  you  want,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"My  first  love  was  all  blundering,"  said  Capes. 

He  thought  for  a  moment,  and  went  on:  "Love  is 
324 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  THE  PENITENT 

something  that  has  to  be  taken  care  of.  One  has  to  be 
so  careful.  .  .  .  It's  a  beautiful  plant,  but  a  tender  one.  .  .  . 
I  didn't  know.  { I've  a  dread  of  love  dropping  its  petals, 
becoming  mean  and  ugly?*  How  can  I  tell  you  all  I  feel  ? 
I  love  you  beyond  measure.  And  I'm  afraid.  .  .  .  I'm 
anxious,  joyfully  anxious,  like  a  man  when  he  has  found 
a  treasure." 

"You  know,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "I  just  came  to 
you  and  put  myself  in  your  hands." 

"That's  why,  in  a  way,  I'm  prudish.  I've — dreads. 
I  don't  want  to  tear  at  you  with  hot,  rough  hands." 

"As  you  will,  dear  lover.  But  for  me  it  doesn't 
matter.  Nothing  is  wrong  that  you  do.  Nothing.  I 
am  quite  clear  about  this.  I  know  exactly  what  I  am 
doing.  I  give  myself  to  you." 

"God  send  you  may  never  repent  it!"  cried  Capes. 

She  put  her  hand  in  his  to  be  squeezed. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "it  is  doubtful  if  we  can  ever 
marry.  Very  doubtful.  I  have  been  thinking —  I 
will  go  to  my  wife  again.  I  will  do  my  utmost.  But 
for  a  long  time,  anyhow,  we  lovers  have  to  be  as  if  we 
were  no  more  than  friends." 

He  paused.  She  answered  slowly.  "That  is  as  you 
will,"  she  said. 

"Why  should  it  matter?"  he  said. 

And  then,  as  she  answered  nothing,  "Seeing  that  we 
are  lovers." 

§7 

It  was  rather  less  than  a  week  after  that  walk  that 
Capes  came  and  sat  down  beside  Ann  Veronica  for  their 

325 


ANN    VERONICA 

customary  talk  in  the  lunch  hour.  He  took  a  handful 
of/ almonds  and  raisins"  that  she  held  out  to  him — for 
both  these  young  people  had  given  up  the  practice  of 
going  out  for  luncheon — and  kept  her  hand  for  a  mo- 
ment to  kiss  her  finger-tips.  He  did  not  speak  for  a 
moment. 

"Well?"  she  said. 

"I  say!"  he  said,  without  any  movement.  "Let's 
go." 

"Go!"  She  did  not  understand  him  at  first,  and 
then  her  heart  began  to  beat  very  rapidly. 

"Stop  this — this  humbugging,"  he  explained.  "It's 
like  the  Picture  and  the  Bust.  I  can't  stand  it.  Let's 
go.  Go  off  and  live  together — until  we  can  marry. 
Dare  you?" 

"Do  you  mean  now?" 

"At  the  end  of  the  session.  It's  the  only  clean  way 
for  us.  Are  you  prepared  to  do  it?" 

Her  hands  clenched.  "Yes,"  she  said,  very  faintly. 
And  then:  "Of  course!  Always.  It  is  what  I  have 
wanted,  what  I  have  meant  all  along." 

She  stared  before  her,  trying  to  keep  back  a  rush 
of  tears. 

Capes  kept  obstinately  stiff,  and  spoke  between  his 
teeth. 

"There's  endless  reasons,  no  doubt,  why  we 
shouldn't,"  he  said.  "Endless.  It's  wrong  in  the  eyes 
of  most  people.  For  many  of  them  it  will  smirch  us 
forever.  .  .  .  You  do  understand?" 

"Who  cares  for  most  people?"  she  said,  not  looking 
at  him. 

"I  do.     It  means  social  isolation — struggle." 


I 


THE   COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PENITENT 

"If  you  dare — I  dare,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "I  was 
never  so  clear  in  all  my  life  as  I  have  been  in  this  busi- 
ness." She  lifted  steadfast  eyes  to  him.  "Dare!"  she 
said.  The  tears  were  welling  over  now,  but  her  voice 
was  steady.  "You're  not  a  man  for  me — not  one  of  a 
sex,  I  mean.  (You're  just  a  particular  being  with  noth- 
ing else  in  the  world  to  class  with  youj?  You  are  just 
necessary  to  life  for  me.  I've  never  met  any  one  like 
you.  To  have  you  is  all  important.  Nothing  else 
weighs  against  it.  Morals  only  begin  when  that  is  set- 
tled. I  sha'n't  care  a  rap  if  we  can  never  marry.  I'm 
not  a  bit  afraid  of  anything — scandal,  difficulty,  strug- 
gle. .  .  .  I  rather  want  them.  I  do  want  them." 

" You'Tfge't  them,"  he  said.     "This  means  a  plunge." 

"Are  you  afraid?" 

"Only  for  you!  Most  of  my  income  will  vanish. 
Even  unbelieving  biological  demonstrators  must  respect 
decorum;  and  besides,  you  see — you  were  a  student. 
We  shall  have — hardly  any  money." 

"I  don't  care." 

"Hardship  and  danger." 

"With  you!" 

"And  as  for  your  people?" 

"They  don't  count.  That  is  the  dreadful  truth. 
This — all  this  swamps  them.  They  don't  count,  and 
I  don't  care." 

Capes  suddenly  abandoned  his  attitude  of  medita- 
tive restraint.  "By  Jove!"  he  broke  out,  "one  tries 
to  take  a  serious,  sober  view.  I  don't  quite  know  why. 
But  this  is  a  great  lark,  Ann  Veronica!  This  turns  life 
into  a  glorious  adventure!" 

"Ah!"  she  cried  in  triumph. 

327 


ANN    VERONICA 

"I  shall  have  to  give  up  biology,  anyhow.  I've  al- 
ways had  a  sneaking  desire  for  the  writing -trade. r  That 
is  what  I  must  do.  I  can." 

"Of  course  you  can." 

"And  biology  was  beginning  to  bore  me  a  bit.  One 
research  is  very  like  another.  .  .  .  Latterly  I've  been  do- 
ing things.  .  .  .  Creative  work  appeals  to  me  wonderfully. 
Things  seem  to  come  rather  easily.  .  .  .  But  that,  and 
that  sort  of  thing,  is  just  a  day-dream.  For  a  time  I 
must  do  journalism  and  work  hard.  .  .  .  What  isn't  a 
day-dream  is  this:  that  you  and  I  are  going  to  put  an 
end  to  flummery — and  go!" 

"Go!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  clenching  her  hands. 

"For  better  or  worse." 

"For  richer  or  poorer." 

She  could  not  go  on,  for  she  was  laughing  and  crying 
at  the  same  time.  "We  were  bound  to  do  this  when 
you  kissed  me,"  she  sobbed  through  her  tears.  "We 
have  been  all  this  time — •  Only  your  queer  code  of 
honor — •  Honor!  Once  you  begin  with  love  you  have 
to  see  it  through." 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTEENTH 

THE    LAST    DAYS    AT   HOME 
§    I 

THEY  decided  to  go  to  Switzerland  at  the  session's 
end.  "  We'll  clean  up  everything  tidy,"  said 
Capes.  .  .  . 

For  her  pride's  sake,  and  to  save  herself  from  long 
day-dreams  and  an  unappeasable  longing  for  her  lover, 
Ann  Veronica  worked  hard  at  her  biology  during  those 
closing  weeks.  She  was,  as  Capes  had  said,  a  hard  young 
woman.  She  was  keenly  resolved  to  do  well  in  the  school 
examination,  and  not  to  be  drowned  i^^the  seas  of  emo- 
tion that  threatened  to  submerge  her  intellectual  being! 

Nevertheless,  she  could  not  prevent  a  rising  excite- 
ment as  the  dawn  of  the  new  life  drew  near  to  her — a 
thrilling  of  the  nerves,  a  secret  and  delicious  exaltation 
above  the  common  circumstances  of  existence.  Some- 
times her  straying  mind  would  become  astonishingly 
active — embroidering  bright  and  decorative  things  that 
she  could  say  to  Capes;  sometimes  it  passed  into  a  state 
of  passive  acquiescence,  into  a  radiant,  formless,  golden 
joy.  She  was  aware  of  people — her  aunt,  her  father, 
her  fellow-students,  friends,  and  neighbors — moving 
about  outside  this  glowing  secret,  very  much  as  an  actor 

329 


ANN    VERONICA 

is  aware  of  the  dim  audience  beyond  the  barrier  of  the 
footlights.  They  might  applaud,  or  object,  or  interfere, 
but  the  drama  was  her  very  own.  She  was  going  through 
with  that,  anyhow. 

The  feeling  of  last  days  grew  stronger  with  her  as  their 
number  diminished.  She  went  about  the  familiar  home 
with  a  clearer  and  clearer  sense  of  inevitable  conclusions. 
She  became  exceptionally  considerate  and  affectionate 
with  her  father  and  aunt,  and  more  and  more  concerned 
about  the  coming  catastrophe  that  she  was  about  to 
precipitate  upon  them.  Her  aunt  had  a  once  exasperat- 
ing habit  of  interruptng  her  work  with  demands  for  small 
household  services,  but  now  Ann  Veronica  rendered 
them  with  a  queer  readiness  of  anticipatory  propitiation. 
She  was  greatly  exercised  by  the  problem  of  confiding 
in  the  Widgetts;  they  were  dears,  and  she  talked  away 
two  evenings  with  Constance  without  broaching  the 
topic;  she  made  some  vague  intimations  in  letters  to 
Miss  Miniver  that  Miss  Miniver  failed  to  mark.  But 
she  did  not  bother  her  head  very  much  about  her  re- 
lations with  these  sympathizers. 

And  at  length  her  penultimate  day  in  Morningside 
Park  dawned  for  her.  She  got  up  early,  and  walked 
about  the  garden  in  the  dewy  June  sunshine  and  re- 
vived her  childhood.  She  was  saying  good-bye  to  child- 
hood and  home,  and  her  making;  she  was  going  out  into 
the  great,  multitudinous  world;  this  time  there  would 
be  no  returning.  She  was  at  the  end  of  girlhood  and  on 
the  eve  of  a  woman's  crowning  experience.  She  visited 
the  corner  that  had  been  her  own  little  garden — her 
forget-me-nots  and  candytuft  had  long  since  been 
elbowed  into  insignificance  by  weeds;  she  visited  the 

330 


THE   LAST   DAYS   AT  HOME 

raspberry-canes  that  had  sheltered  that  first  love  affair 
with  the  little  boy  in  velvet,  and  the  greenhouse  where 
she  had  been  wont  to  read  her  secret  letters.  Here  was 
the  place  behind  the  shed  where  she  had  used  to  hide 
from  Roddy's  persecutions,  and  here  the  border  of  her- 
baceous perennials  under  whose  stems  was  fairyland.  The 
back  of  the  house  had  been  the  Alps  for  climbing,  and 
the  shrubs  in  front  of  it  a  Terai.  The  knots  and  broken 
pale  that  made  the  garden -fence  scalable,  and  gave 
access  to  the  fields  behind,  were  still  to  be  traced.  And 
here  against  a  wall  were  the  plum-trees.  In  spite  of 
God  and  wasps  and  her  father,  she  had  stolen  plums ;  and 
once  because  of  discovered  misdeeds,  and  once  because 
she  had  realized  that  her  mother  was  dead,  she  had  lain 
on  her  face  in  the  nnmown  grass,  beneath  the  elm- trees 
that  came  beyond  the  vegetables,  and  poured  out  her 
soul  in  weeping.  . 

Remote  little  Ann  Veronica !  \  She  would  never  know 
the  heart  of  that  child  again  ij  That  child  had  loved 
fairy  princes  with  velvet  suits  and  golden  locks,  and  she 
was  in  love  with  a  real  man  named  Capes,  with  little 
gleams  of  gold  on  his  cheek  and  a  pleasant  voice  and  firm 
and  shapely  hands.  She  was  going  to  him  soon  and 
certainly,  going  to  his  strong,  embracing  arms.  She 
was  going  through  a  new  world  with  him  side  by  side. 
She  had  been  so  busy  with  life  that,  for  a  vast  gulf  of 
time,  as  it  seemed,  she  had  given  no  thought  to  those 
ancient,  imagined  things  of  her  childhood.  Now, 
abruptly,  they  were  real  again,  though  very  distant,  and 
she  had  come  to  say  farewell  to  them  across  one  sunder- 
ing year. 

She  was  unusually  helpful  at  breakfast,  and  unselfish 

33i. 


ANN    VERONICA 

about  the  eggs;  and  then  she  went  off  to  catch  the  train 
before  her  father's.  She  did  this  to  please  him.  He 
hated  travelling  second-class  with  her — indeed,  he  never 
did — but  he  also  disliked  travelling  in  the  same  train 
when  his  daughter  was  in  an  inferior  class,  because  of 
the  look  of  the  thing.  So  he  liked  to  go  by  a  different 
train.  And  in  the  Avenue  she  had  an  encounter  with 
Ramage. 

It  was  an  odd  little  encounter,  that  left  vague  and 
dubi table  impressions  in  her  mind.  She  was  aware  of 
him — a  silk-hatted,  shiny-black  figure  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  Avenue;  and  then,  abruptly  and  startlingly, 
he  crossed  the  road  and  saluted  and  spoke  to  her. 

"  I  must  speak  to  you,"  he  said.  "  I  can't  keep  away 
from  you." 

She  made  some  inane  response.  She  was  struck  by 
a  change  in  his  appearance.  His  eyes  looked  a  little 
bloodshot  to  her;  his  face  had  lost  something  of  its  ruddy 
freshness. 

He  began  a  jerky,  broken  conversation  that  lasted 
until  they  reached  the  station,  and  left  her  puzzled  at  its 
drift  and  meaning.  She  quickened  her  pace,  and  so  did 
he,  talking  at  her  slightly  averted  ear.  She  made 
lumpish  and  inadequate  interruptions  rather  than 
replies.  At  times  he  seemed  to  be  claiming  pity  from 
her ;  at  times  he  was  threatening  her  with  her  check  and 
exposure;  at  times  he  was  boasting  of  his  inflexible  will, 
and  how,  in  the  end,  he  always  got  what  he  wanted. 
He  said  that  his  life  was  boring  and  stupid  without  her. 
Something  or  other — she  did  not  catch  what — he  was 
damned  if  he  could  stand.  He  was  evidently  nervous, 
and  very  anxious  to  be  impressive;  his  projecting  eyes 

332 


THE   LAST   DAYS   AT   HOME 

sought  to  dominate.  The  crowning  aspect  of  the  in- 
cident, for  her  mind,  was  the  discovery  thatf  he  and  h<3r 
indiscretion  with  him  no  longer  mattered  very  much. 
Its  importance  had  vanished  with  her  abandonment  of 
compromise.  Even  her  debt  to  him  was  a  triviality  now. 

And  of  course!  She  had  a  brilliant  idea.  It  sur- 
prised her  she  hadn't  thought  of  it  before!  She  tried  to 
explain  that  she  was  going  to  pay  him  forty  pounds  with- 
out fail  next  week.  She  said  as  much  to  him.  She 
repeated  this  breathlessly. 

"  I  was  glad  you  did  not  send  it  back  again,"  he  said. 

He  touched  a  long-standing  sore,  and  Ann  Veronica 
found  herself  vainly  trying  to  explain — the  inexplicable. 
"It's  because  I  mean  to  send  it  back  altogether,"  she 
said. 

He  ignored  her  protests  in  order  to  pursue  some  im- 
pressive line  of  his  own. 

"Here  we  are,  living  in  the  same  suburb,"  he  began. 
"We  have  to  be — modern." 

Her  heart  leaped  within  her  as  she  caught  that 
phrase.  That  knot  also  would  be  cut.  ftjodern,  in- 
deed! She  was  going  to  be  as  primordial  .as  chipped 
flint. 

§    2 

In  the  late  afternoon,  as  Ann  Veronica  was  gathering 
flowers  for  the  dinner-table,  her  father  came  strolling 
across  the  lawn  toward  her  with  an  affectation  of  great 
deliberation. 

"I  want  to  speak  to  you  about  a  little  thing,  Vee," 
said  Mr.  Stanley. 

333 


ANN    VERONICA 

Ann  Veronica's  tense  nerves  started,  and  she  stood 
still  with  her  eyes  upon  him,  wondering  what  it  might 
be  that  impended. 

"You  were  talking  to  that  fellow  Ramage  to-day — in 
the  Avenue.  Walking  to  the  station  with  him." 

So  that  was  it! 

"He  came  and  talked  to  me." 

"Ye— e— es."  Mr.  Stanley  considered.  "Well,  I 
don't  want  you  to  talk  to  him,"  he  said,  very  firmly. 

Ann  Veronica  paused  before  she  answered.  "Don't 
you  think  I  ought  to?"  she  asked,  very  submissively. 

"No."  Mr.  Stanley  coughed  and  faced  toward  the 
house.  "He  is  not —  I  don't  like  him.  I  think  it 
inadvisable —  I  don't  want  an  intimacy  to  spring  up 
between  you  and  a  man  of  that  type." 

Ann  Veronica  reflected.  "I  have — had  one  or  two 
talks  with  him,  daddy." 

"Don't  let  there  be  any  more.  I —  In  fact,  I  dis- 
like him  extremely." 

"Suppose  he  comes  and  talks  to  me?" 

"A  girl  can  always  keep  a  man  at  a  distance  if  she 
cares  to  do  it.  She —  She  can  snub  him." 

Ann  Veronica  picked  a  cornflower. 

"I  wouldn't  make  this  objection,"  Mr.  Stanley  went 
on,  "but  there  are  things — there  are  stories  about 
Ramage.  He's —  He  lives  in  a  world  of  possibilities 
outside  your  imagination.  His  treatment  of  his  wife 
is  most  unsatisfactory.  Most  unsatisfactory.  A  bad 
man,  in  fact.  A  dissipated,  loose-living  man." 

"I'll  try  not  to  see  him  again,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 
"I  didn't  know  you  objected  to  him,  daddy." 

"Strongly,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  "  very  strongly ." 
334 


THE   LAST    DAYS   AT    HOME 

The  conversation  hung.  Ann  Veronica  wondered 
what  her  father  would  do  if  she  were  to  tell  him  the 
full  story  of  her  relations  with  Ramage. 

"A  man  like  that  taints  a  girl  by  looking  at  her,  by 
his  mere  conversation."  He  adjusted  his  glasses  on  his 
nose.  There  was  another  little  thing  he  had  to  say. 
"One  has  to  be  so  careful  of  one's  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances," he  remarked,  by  way  of  transition.  "They 
mould  one  insensibly."  His  voice  assumed  an  easy  de- 
tached tone.  "I  suppose,  Vee,  you  don't  see  much 
of  those  Widgetts  now?" 

"I  go  in  and  talk  to  Constance  sometimes." 

"Do  you?" 

"We  were  great  friends  at  school." 

"No  doubt.  .  .  .  Still—  I  don't  know  whether  I 
quite  like —  Something  ramshackle  about  those  peo- 
ple, Vee.  While  I  am  talking  about  your  friends,  I 
feel —  I  think  you  ought  to  know  how  I  look  at  it." 
His  voice  conveyed  studied  moderation.  "I  don't 
mind,  of  course,  your  seeing  her  sometimes,  still  there 
are  differences — differences  in  social  atmospheres.  One 
gets  .drawn  into  things.  Before  you  know  where  you 
are  you  find  yourself  in  a  complication.  I  don't  want 
to  influence  you  unduly —  But —  They're  artistic 
people,  Vee.  That's  the  fact  about  them.  We're  dif- 
ferent." 

"I  suppose  we  are,"  said  Vee,  rearranging  the  flowers 
in  her  hand. 

"Friendships  that  are  all  very  well  between  school- 
girls don't  always  go  on  into  later  life.  It's — it's  a 
social  difference." 

"I  like  Constance  very  much." 

335 


ANN    VERONICA 

"  No  doubt.  Still,  one  has  to  be  reasonable.  As  you 
admitted  to  me — one  has  to  square  one's  self  with  the 
world.  You  don't  know.  With  people  of  that  sort  all 
sorts  of  things  may  happen.  We  don't  want  things  to 
happen/' 

Ann  Veronica  made  no  answer. 

A  vague  desire  to  justify  himself  ruffled  her  father. 
"I  may  seem  unduly — anxious.  I  can't  forget  about 
your  sister.  It's  that  has  always  made  me—  She, 
you  know,  was  drawn  into  a  set — didn't  discriminate. 
Private  theatricals." 

Ann  Veronica  remained  anxious  to  hear  more  of  her 
sister's  story  from  her  father's  point  of  view,  but  he 
did  not  go  on.  Even  so  much  allusion  as  this  to  that 
family  shadow,  she  felt,  was  an  immense  recognition  of 
her  ripening  years.  She  glanced  at  him.  He  stood  a 
little  anxious  and  fussy,  bothered  by  the  responsibility 
of  her,  entirely  careless  of  what  her  life  was  or  was  likely 
to  be,  ignoring  her  thoughts  and  feelings,  ignorant  of 
every  fact  of  importance  in  her  life,  explaining  every- 
thing he  could  not  understand  in  her  as  nonsense  and 
perversity,  concerned  only  with  a  terror  of  bothers  and 
undesirable  situations.  "We  don't  want  things  to 
happen!"  Never  had  he  shown  his  daughter  so  clearly 
that  the  womenkind  he  was  persuaded  he  had  to  pro- 
tect and  control  could  please  him  in  one  way,  and  in 
one  way  only,  and  that  was  by  doing  nothing  except 
the  punctual  domestic  duties  and  being  nothing  except 
restful  appearances.  He  had  quite  enough  to  see  to 
and  worry  about  in  the  City  without  their  doing  things. 
He  had  no  use  for  Ann  Veronica;  he  had  never  had  a 
use  for  her  since  she  had  been  too  old  to  sit  upon  his 

336 


THE   LAST    DAYS   AT   HOME 

knee.  Nothing  but  the  constraint  of  social  usage  now 
linked  him  to  her.  And  the  less  "anything"  happened 
the  better.  The  less  she  lived,  in  fact,  the  better.  These 
realizations  rushed  into  Ann  Veronica's  mind  and  hard- 
ened her  heart  against  him.  She  spoke  slowly.  "I 
may  not  see  the  Widgetts  for  some  little  time,  father," 
she  said.  "I  don't  think  I  shall." 

"Some  little  tiff?" 

"No;  but  I  don't  think  I  shall  see  them." 

Suppose  she  were  to  add,  "I  am  going  away!" 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  it,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  and 
was  so  evidently  pleased  that  Ann  Veronica's  heart 
smote  her. 

"I  am  very  glad  to  hear  you  say  it,"  he  repeated,  and 
refrained  from  further  inquiry.  "I  think  we  are  grow- 
ing sensible,"  he  said.  "I  think  you  are  getting  to 
understand  me  better." 

He  hesitated,  and  walked  away  from  her  toward  the 
house.  Her  eyes  followed  him.  The  curve  of  his 
shoulders,  the  very  angle  of  his  feet,  expressed  relief  at 
her  apparent  obedience.  "Thank  goodness!"  said  that 
retreating  aspect,  "that's  said  and  over.  Vee's  all 
right.  There's  nothing  happened  at  all!"  She  didn't 
mean,  he  concluded,  to  give  him  any  more  trouble  ever, 
and  he  was  free  to  begin  a  fresh  chromatic  novel — he 
had  just  finished  the  Blue  Lagoon,  which  he  thought 
very  beautiful  and  tender  and  absolutely  irrelevant 
to  Morningside  Park — or  work  in  peace  at  his  microtome 
without  bothering  about  her  in  the  least. 

The  immense  disillusionment  that  awaited  him! 
The  devastating  disillusionment!  She  had  a  vague 
desire  to  run  after  him,  to  state  her  case  to  him,  to 

337 


ANN    VERONICA 

wring  some  understanding  from  him  of  what  life  was 
to  her.  She  felt  a  cheat  and  a  sneak  to  his  unsuspecting 
retreating  back. 

"But  what  can  one  do?"  asked  Ann  Veronica. 


§3 

She  dressed  carefully  for  dinner  in  a  black  dress 
that  her  father  liked,  and  that  made  her  look  serious 
and  responsible.  Dinner  was  quite  uneventful.  Her 
father  read  a  draft  prospectus  warily,  and  her  aunt 
dropped  fragments  of  her  projects  for  managing  while 
the  cook  had  a  holiday.  After  dinner  Ann  Veronica 
went  into  the  drawing-room  with  Miss  Stanley,  and 
her  father  went  up  to  his  den  for  his  pipe  and  pensive 
petrography.  Later  in  the  evening  she  heard  him 
whistling,  poor  man! 

She  felt  very  restless  and  excited.  She  refused 
coffee,  though  she  knew  that  anyhow  she  was  doomed 
to  a  sleepless  night.  She  took  up  one  of  her  father's 
novels  and  put  it  down  again,  fretted  up  to  her  own  room 
for  some  work,  sat  on  her  bed  and  meditated  upon  the 
room  that  she  was  now  really  abandoning  forever,  and 
returned  at  length  with  a  stocking  to  darn.  Her  aunt 
was  making  herself  cuffs  out  of  little  slips  of  insertion 
under  the  newly  lit  lamp. 

Ann  Veronica  sat  down  in  the  other  arm-chair  and 
darned  badly  for  a  minute  or  so.  Then  she  looked 
at  her  aunt,  and  traced  with  a  curious  eye  the  careful 
arrangement  of  her  hair,  her  sharp  nose,  the  little 
drooping  lines  of  mouth  and  chin  and  cheek. 

338 


THE   LAST    DAYS   AT   HOME 

Her  thought  spoke  aloud.  "Were  you  ever  in  love, 
aunt?"  she  asked. 

Her  aunt  glanced  up  startled,  and  then  sat  very  still, 
with  hands  that  had  ceased  to  work.  "What  makes 
you  ask  such  a  question,  Vee?"  she  said. 

"  I  wondered." 

Her  aunt  answered  in  a  low  voice :  "  I  was  engaged  to 
him,  dear,  for  seven  years,  and  then  he  died." 

Ann  Veronica  made  a  sympathetic  little  murmur. 

"  He  was  in  holy  orders,  and  we  were  to  have  been 
married  when  he  got  a  living.  He  was  a  Wiltshire 
Edmondshaw,  a  very  old  family." 

She  sat  very  still. 

Ann  Veronica  hesitated  with  a  question  that  had 
leaped  up  in  her  mind,  and  that  she  felt  was  cruel.  "  Are 
you  sorry  you  waited,  aunt?"  she  said. 

Her  aunt  was  a  long  time  before  she  answered.  "  His 
stipend  forbade  it,"  she  said,  and  seemed  to  fall  into  a 
train  of  thought.  "  It  would  have  been  rash  and  un- 
wise," she  said  at  the  end  of  a  meditation.  "What  he 
had  was  altogether  insufficient." 

Ann  Veronica  looked  at  the  mildly  pensive  gray  eyes 
and  the  comfortable,  rather  refined  face  with  a  penetrat- 
ing curiosity.  Presently  her  aunt  sighed  deeply  and 
looked  at  the  clock.  "Time  for  my  Patience,"  she 
said.  She  got  up,  put  the  neat  cuffs  she  had  made  into 
her  work-basket,  and  went  to  the  bureau  for  the  little 
cards  in  the  morocco  case.  Ann  Veronica  jumped  up 
to  get  her  the  card- table.  "  I  haven't  seen  the  new 
Patience,  dear,"  she  said.  "May  I  sit  beside  you?" 

"It's  a  very  difficult  one,"  said  her  aunt.  "Perhaps 
you  will  help  me  shuffle?" 

339 


ANN   VERONICA 

Ann  Veronica  did,  and  also  assisted  nimbly  with 
the  arrangements  of  the  rows  of  eight  with  which  the 
struggle  began.  Then  she  sat  watching  the  play, 
sometimes  offering  a  helpful  suggestion,  sometimes  let- 
ting her  attention  wander  to  the  smoothly  shining 
arms  she  had  folded  across  her  knees  just  below  the 
edge  of  the  table.  She  was  feeling  extraordinarily 
well  that  night,  so  that  the  sense  of  her  body  was  a  deep 
delight,  a  realization  of  a  gentle  warmth  and  strength 
and  elastic  firmness.  Then  she  glanced  at  the  cards 
again,  over  which  her  aunt's  many-ringed  hand  played, 
and  then  at  the  rather  weak,  rather  plump  face  that 
surveyed  its  operations. 

It  came  to  Ann  Veronica  that  life  was  wonderful 
beyond  measure.  It  seemed  incredible  that  she  and 
her  aunt  were,  indeed,  creatures  of  the  same  blood, 
only  by  a  birth  or  so  different  beings,  and  part  of  that 
same  broad  interlacing  stream  of  human  life  that  has 
invented  the  fauns  and  nymphs,  Astarte,  Aphrodite, 
Freya,  and  all  the  twining  beauty  of  the  gods.  The 
love-songs  of  all  the  ages  were  singing  in  her  blood, 
the  scent  of  night  stock  from  the  garden  filled  the  air, 
and  the  moths  that  beat  upon  the  closed  frames  of  the 
window  next  the  lamp  set  her  mind  dreaming  of  kisses 
in  the  dusk.  Yet  her  aunt,  with  a  ringed  hand  flitting 
to  her  lips  and  a  puzzled,  worried  look  in  her  eyes,  deaf 
to  all  this  riot  of  warmth  and  flitting  desire,  was  play- 
ing Patience — playing  Patience,  as  if  Dionysius  and  her 
curate  had  died  together.  A  faint  buzz  above  the  ceiling 
witnessed  that  petrography,  too,  was  active.  Gray  and 
tranquil  world!  Amazing,  passionless  world!  A  world 
in  which  days  without  meaning,  days  in  which  "we 

340 


THE    LAST   DAYS   AT   HOME 

don't  want  things  to  happen"  followed  days  without 
meaning — until  the  last  thing  happened,  the  ultimate, 
unavoidable,  coarse,  "disagreeable."  It  was  her  last 
evening  in  that  wrappered  life  against  which  she  had 
rebelled.  Warm  reality  was  now  so  near  her  she  could 
hear  it  beating  in  her  ears.  Away  in  London  even  now 
Capes  was  packing  and  preparing;  Capes,  the  magic 
man  whose  touch  turned  one  to  trembling  fire.  What 
was  he  doing?  What  was  he  thinking?  It  was  less 
than  a  day  now,  less  than  twenty  hours.  Seventeen 
hours,  sixteen  hours.  She  glanced  at  the  soft-ticking 
clock  with  the  exposed  brass  pendulum  upon  the  white 
marble  mantel,  and  made  a  rapid  calculation.  To 
be  exact,  it  was  just  sixteen  hours  and  twenty  minutes. 
The  slow  stars  circled  on  to  the  moment  of  their  meeting. 
The  softly  glittering  summer  stars !  She  saw  them  shin- 
ing over  mountains  of  snow,  over  valleys  of  haze  and 
warm  darkness.  .  .  .  There  would  be  no  moon. 

"  I  believe  after  all  it's  coming  out ! "  said  Miss  Stanley. 
"The  aces  made  it  easy." 

Ann  Veronica  started  from  her  reverie,  sat  up  in  her 
chair,  became  attentive.  "Look,  dear,"  she  said 
presently,  "you  can  put  the  ten  on  the  Jack." 


CHAPTER    THE    SIXTEENTH 

IN    THE    MOUNTAINS 
§    I 

NEXT  day  Ann  Veronica  and  Capes  felt  like  new- 
born things.  It  seemed  to  them  they  could  never 
have  been  really  alive  before,  but  only  dimly  antici- 
pating existence.  They  sat  face  to  face  beneath  an  ex- 
perienced-looking rucksack  and  a  brand  new  port- 
manteau and  a  leather  handbag,  in  the  afternoon-boat 
train  that  goes  from  Charing  Cross  to  Folkestone  for 
Boulogne.  They  tried  to  read  illustrated  papers  in  an 
unconcerned  manner  and  with  forced  attention,  lest  they 
should  catch  the  leaping  exultation  in  each  other's  eyes. 
And  they  admired  Kent  sedulously  from  the  windows. 

They  crossed  the  Channel  in  sunshine  and  a  breeze 
that  just  ruffled  the  sea  to  glittering  scales  of  silver. 
Some  of  the  people  who  watched  them  standing  side  by 
side  thought  they  must  be  newly  wedded  because  of 
their  happy  faces,  and  others  that  they  were  an  old- 
established  couple  because  of  their  easy  confidence  in 
each  other. 

At  Boulogne  they  took  train  to  Basle;  next  morning 
they  breakfasted  together  in  the  buffet  of  that  station, 
and  thence  they  caught  the  Interlaken  express,  and  so 

342 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

went  by  way  of  Spies  to  Frutigen.  There  was  no  rail- 
way beyond  Frutigen  in  those  days;  they  sent  their 
baggage  by  post  to  Kandersteg,  and  walked  along  the 
mule  path  to  the  left  of  the  stream  to  that  queer  hollow 
among  the  precipices,  Blau  See,  where  the  petrifying 
branches  of  trees  lie  in  the  blue  deeps  of  an  icy  lake,  and 
pine-trees  clamber  among  gigantic  bowlders.  A  little 
inn  flying  a  Swiss  flag  nestles  under  a  great  rock,  and 
there  they  put  aside  their  knapsacks  and  lunched  and 
rested  in  the  mid-day  shadow  of  the  gorge  and  the  scent 
of  resin.  And  later  they  paddled  in  a  boat  above  the 
mysterious  deeps  of  the  See,  and  peered  down  into  the 
green-blues  and  the  blue-greens  together.  By  that  time 
it  seemed  to  them  they  had  lived  together  twenty  years. 
Except  for  one  memorable  school  excursion  to  Paris, 
Ann  Veronica  had  never  yet  been  outside  England.  So 
that  it  seemed  to  her  the  whole  world  had  changed — the 
very  light  of  it  had  changed.  Instead  of  English  villas 
and  cottages  there  were  chalets  and  Italian-built  houses 
shining  white;  there  were  lakes  of  emerald  and  sapphire 
and  clustering  castles,  and  such  sweeps  of  hill  and  moun- 
tain, such  shining  uplands  of  snow,  as  she  had  never  seen 
before.  Everything  was  fresh  and  bright,  from  the 
kindly  manners  of  the  Frutigen  cobbler,  who  hammered 
mountain  nails  into  her  boots,  to  the  unfamiliar  wild 
flowers  that  spangled  the  wayside.  And  Capes  had 
changed  into  the  easiest  and  jolliest  companion  in  the 
world.  The  mere  fact  that  he  was  there  in  the  train 
alongside  her,  helping  her,  sitting  opposite  to  her  in  the 
dining-car,  presently  sleeping  on  a  seat  within  a  yard  of 
her,  made  her  heart  sing  until  she  was  afraid  their  fel- 
low passengers  would  hear  it.  It  was  too  good  to  be 

343 


ANN    VERONICA 

true.  She  would  not  sleep  for  fear  of  losing  a  moment  of 
that  sense  of  his  proximity.  To  walk  beside  him, 
dressed  akin  to  him,  rucksacked  and  companionable,  was 
bliss  in  itself;  each  step  she  took  was  like  stepping  once 
more  across  the  threshold  of  heaven. 

One  trouble,  however,  shot  its  slanting  bolts  athwart 
the  shining  warmth  of  that  opening  day  and  marred  its 
perfection,  and  that  was  the  thought  of  her  father. 

She  had  treated  him  badly;  she  had  hurt  him  and  her 
aunt;  she  had  done  wrong  by  their  standards,  and  she 
would  never  persuade  them  that  she  had  done  right. 
She  thought  of  her  father  in  the  garden,  and  of  her  aunt 
with  her  Patience,  as  she  had  seen  them — how  many 
ages  was  it  ago  ?  Just  one  day  intervened.  She  felt  as 
if  she  had  struck  them  unawares.  The  thought  of  them 
distressed  her  without  subtracting  at  all  from  the  oceans 
of  happiness  in  which  she  swam.  But  she  wished  she 
could  put  the  thing  she  had  done  in  some  way  to  them 
so  that  it  would  not  hurt  them  so  much  as  the  truth 
would  certainly  do.  The  thought  of  their  faces,  and 
particularly  of  her  aunt's,  as  it  would  meet  the  fact — 
disconcerted,  unfriendly,  condemning,  pained — occurred 
to  her  again  and  again. 

"Oh!  I  wish,"  she  said,  "that  people  thought  alike 
about  these  things." 

Capes  watched  the  limpid  water  dripping  from  his 
oar.  "  I  wish  they  did,"  he  said,  "but  they  don't." 

"I  feel —  All  this  is  the  lightest  of  all  conceivable 
things.  I  want  to  tell  every  one.  I  want  to  boast 
myself." 

"I  know." 

"  I  told  them  a  lie.  I  told  them  lies.  I  wrote  three 

344 


IN    THE    MOUNTAINS 

letters  yesterday  and  tore  them  up.  It  was  so  hopeless 
to  put  it  to  them.  At  last — I  told  a  story." 

"You  didn't  tell  them  our  position?" 

"I  implied  we  had  married." 

"They'll  find  out.     They'll  know." 

"Not  yet." 

"Sooner  or  later." 

"  Possibly — bit  by  bit.  .  .  .  But  it  was  hopelessly  hard 
to  put.  I  said  I  knew  he  disliked  and  distrusted  you 
and  your  work — that  you  shared  all  Russell's  opinions: 
he  hates  Russell  beyond  measure — and  that  we  couldn't 
possibly  face  a  conventional  marriage.  What  else  could 
one  say?  I  left  him  to  suppose — a  registry  perhaps.  .  .  ." 

Capes  let  his  oar  smack  on  the  water. 

"  Do  you  mind  very  much  ?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"But  it  makes  me  feel  inhuman,"  he  added. 

"And  me.  .  .  ." 

"It's  the  perpetual  trouble,"  he  said,  "of  parent  and 
child.  They  can't  help  seeing  things  in  the  way  they 
do.  Nor  can  we.  We  don't  think  they're  right,  but 
they  don't  think  we  are.  A  deadlock.  In  a  very 
definite  sense  we  are  in  the  wrong — hopelessly  in  the 
wrong.  But —  It's  just  this:  who  was  to  be  hurt?" 

"I  wish  no  one  had  to  be  hurt,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 
"When  one  is  happy —  I  don't  like  to  think  of  them. 
Last  time  I  left  home  I  felt  as  hard  as  nails.  But  this 
is  all  different.  It  is  different." 

"There's  a  sort  of  instinct  of  rebellion,"  said  Capes. 
"  It  isn't  anything  to  do  with  our  times  particularly. 
People  think  it  is,  but  they  are  wrong.  It's  to  do  with 
adolescence.  Long  before  religion  and  Society  heard  of 

345 


ANN   VERONICA 

Doubt,  girls  were  all  for  midnight  coaches  and  Gretna 
Green.     It's  a  sort  of  home-leaving  instinct." 

He  followed  up  a  line  of  thought. 

"There's  another  instinct,  too,"  he  went  on,  "in  a 
state  of  suppression,  unless  I'm  very  much' mistaken ;  a 
child-expelling  instinct.  ...  I  wonder.  .  .  .  There's  no 
family  uniting  instinct,  anyhow;  it's  habit  and  sentiment 
and  material  convenience  hold  families  together  after 
adolescence.  There's  always  friction,  conflict,  unwilling 
concessions.  Always!  I  don't  believe  there  is  any 
strong  natural  affection  at  all  between  parents  and 
growing-up  children.  There  wasn't,  I  know,  between 
myself  and  my  father.  I  didn't  allow  myself  to  see  things 
as  they  were  in  those  days;  now  I  do.  I  bored  him.  I 
hated  him.  I  suppose  that  shocks  one's  ideas.  .  .  .  It's 
true.  .  .  .  There  are  sentimental  and  traditional  def- 
erences and  reverences,  I  know,  between  father  and  son; 
but  that's  just  exactly  what  prevents  the  development 
of  an  easy  friendship.  Father- worshipping  sons  are 
abnormal — and  they're  no  good.  No  good  at  all.  One's 
got  to  be  a  better  man  than  one's  father,  or  what  is  the 
good  of  successive  generations?  Life  is  rebellion,  or 
nothing." 

He  rowed  a  stroke  and  watched  the  swirl  of  water 
from  his  oar  broaden  and  die  away.  At  last  he  took 
up  his  thoughts  again:  "I  wonder  if,  some  day,  one 
won't  need  to  rebel  against  customs  and  laws?  If  this 
discord  will  have  gone?  Some  day,  perhaps — who 
knows? — the  old  won't  coddle  and  hamper  the  young, 
and  the  young  won't  need  to  fly  in  the  faces  of  the  old. 
They'll  face  facts  as  facts,  and  understand.  Oh,  to 
face  facts!  Gods!  what  a  world  it  might  be  if  people 

346 


IN   THE    MOUNTAINS 

faced  facts!  Understanding!  Understanding!  There 
is  no  other  salvation.  Some  day  older  people,  perhaps, 
will  trouble  to  understand  younger  people,  and  there 
won't  be  these  fierce  disruptions;  there  won't  be  bar- 
riers one  must  defy  or  perish.  .  .  .  That's  really  our 
choice  now,  defy — or  futility.  .  .  .  The  world,  perhaps, 
will  be  educated  out  of  its  idea  of  fixed  standards.  ...  I 
wonder,  Ann  Veronica,  if,  when  our  time  comes,  we 
shall  be  any  wiser?" 

Ann  Veronica  watched  a  water-beetle  fussing  across 
the  green  depths.  "One  can't  tell.  I'm  a  female  thing 
at  bottom.  I  like  high  tone  for  a  flourish  and  stars 
and  ideas;  but  I  want  my  things." 


§  2 

Capes  thought. 

"It's  odd — Uhave  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  what 
we  are  doing  is  wrong,"  he  said.  "And  yet  I  do  it 
without  compunction." 

"I  never  felt  so  absolutely  right,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"You  are  a  female  thing  at  bottom,"  he  admitted. 
"I'm  not  nearly  so  sure  as  you.  As  for  me,  I  look 
twice  at  it.  .  .  .  Life  is  two  things,  that's  how  I  see  it; 
two  things  mixed  and  muddled  up  together.  Life  is 
morality — life  is  adventure.  Squire  and  master.  Ad- 
venture rules,  and  morality — looks  up  the  trains  in  the 
Bradshaw.  Morality  tells  you  what  is  right,  and  ad- 
venture moves  you.  If  morality  means  anything  it 
means  keeping  bounds,  respecting  implications,  respect- 
ing implicit  bounds.  If  individuality  means  anything 
it  means  breaking  bounds — adventure.  Will  you  be 
*3  347 


ANN    VERONICA 

moral  and  your  species,  or  immoral  and  yourself? 
We've  decided  to  be  immoral.  We  needn't  try  and  give 
ourselves  airs.  We've  deserted  the  posts  in  which  we 
found  ourselves,  cut  our  duties,  exposed  ourselves  to 
risks  that  may  destroy  any  sort  of  social  usefulness  in 
us.  ...  I  don't  know.  One  keeps  rules  in  order  to  be 
one's  self.  One  studies  Nature  in  order  not  to  be  blindly 
ruled  by  her.  There's  no  sense  in  morality,  I  suppose, 
unless  you  are  fundamentally  immoral." 

She  watched  his  face  as  he  traced  his  way  through 
these  speculative  thickets. 

"Look  at  our  affair,"  he  went  on,  looking  up  at  her. 
"No  power  on  earth  will  persuade  me  we're  not  two 
rather  disreputable  persons.  You  desert  your  home; 
I  throw  up  useful  teaching,  risk  every  hope  in  your 
career.  Here  we  are  absconding,  pretending  to  be  what 
we  are  not;  shady,  to  say  the  least  of  it.  It's  not  a 
bit  of  good  pretending  there's  any  Higher  Truth  or 
wonderful  principle  in  this  business.  There  isn't.  We 
never  started  out  in  any  high-browed  manner  to  scan- 
dalize and  Shelleyfy.  When  first  you  left  your  home 
you  had  no  idea  that  I  was  the  hidden  impulse.  I 
wasn't.  You  came  out  like  an  ant  for  your  nuptial 
flight.  It  was  just  a  chance  that  we  in  particular  hit 
against  each  other — no tllmg.  predestined  about  it.  We 
just  hit  against  each  other,  and  here  we  are  flying  off 
at  a  tangent,  a  little  surprised  at  what  we  are  doing,  all 
our  principles  abandoned,  and  tremendously  and  quite 
unreasonably  proud  of  ourselves.  Out  of  all  this  we 
have  struck  a  sort  of  harmony.  .  .  .  And  it's  gor- 
geous!" 

"Glorious!"  said  Ann  Veronica. 
348 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

"Would  you  like  us — if  some  one  told  you  the  bare 
outline  of  our  story? — and  what  we  are  doing?" 

"I  shouldn't  mind,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"But  if  some  one  else  asked  your  advice?  If  some 
one  else  said,  'Here  is  my  teacher,  a  jaded  married  man 
on  the  verge  of  middle  age,  and  he  and  I  have  a  violent 
passion  for  one  another.  We  propose  to  disregard  all 
our  ties,  all  our  obligations,  all  the  established  prohibi- 
tions of  society,  and  begin  life  together  afresh.'  What 
would  you  tell  her?" 

"If  she  asked  advice,  I  should  say  she  wasn't  fit  to 
do  anything  of  the  sort.  I  should  say  that  having  a 
doubt  was  enough  to  condemn  it." 

"But  waive  that  point.'' 

"It  would  be  different  all  the  same.  It  wouldn't  be 
you." 

"It  wouldn't  be  you  either.  I  suppose  that's  the 
gist  of  the  whole  thing."  He  stared  at  a  little  eddy. 
"The  rule's  all  right,  so  long  as  there  isn't  a  case.  Rules 
are  for  established  things,  like  the  pieces  and  positions 
of  a  game.  Men  and  women  are  not  established  things; 
they're  experiments,  all  of  them.  Every  human  being 
is  a  new  thing,  exists  to  do  new  things.  Find  the  thing 
you  want  to  do  most  intensely,  make  sure  that's  it,  and 
do  it  with  all  your  might.  If  you  live,  well  and  good; 
if  you  die,  well  and  good.  Your  purpose  is  done.  ... 
Well,  this  is  our  thing." 

He  woke  the  glassy  water  to  swirling  activity  again, 
and  made  the  deep -blue  shapes  below  writhe  and  shiver. 

"This  is  my  thing,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  softly,  with 
thoughtful  eyes  upon  him. 

Then  she  looked  up  the  sweep  of  pine-trees  to  the 

349 


ANN    VERONICA 

towering  sunlit  cliffs  and  the  high  heaven  above  and 
then  back  to  his  face.  She  drew  in  a  deep  breath  of 
the  sweet  mountain  air.  Her  eyes  were  soft  and  grave, 
and  there  was  the  faintest  of  smiles  upon  her  resolute 
lips. 

§3 

Later  they  loitered  along  a  winding  path  above  the 
inn,  and  made  love  to  one  another.  Their  journey  had 
made  them  indolent,  the  afternoon  was  warm,  and  it 
seemed  impossible  to  breathe*  a  sweeter  air.  The  flow- 
ers and  turf,  a  wild  strawberry,  a  rare  butterfly,  and 
suchlike  little  intimate  things  had  become  more  interest- 
ing than  mountains.  Their  flitting  hands  were  always 
touching.  Deep  silences  came  between  them.  .  .  . 

"I  had  thought  to  go  on  to  Kandersteg,"  said  Capes, 
"but  this  is  a  pleasant  place.  There  is  not  a  soul  in  the 
inn  but  ourselves.  Let  us  stay  the  night  here.  Then 
we  can  loiter  and  gossip  to  our  heart's  content." 

"Agreed,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"After  all,  it's  our  honeymoon." 

"  All  we  shall  get,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"This  place  is  very  beautiful." 

"Any  place  would  be  beautiful,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
in  a  low  voice. 

For  a  time  they  walked  in  silence. 

"I  wonder,"  she  began,  presently,  "why  I  love  you 
— and  love  you  so  much  ?  .  .  .  I  know  now  what  it  is  to 
be  an  abandoned  female.  I  am  an  abandoned  female. 
I'm  not  ashamed — of  the  things  I'm  doing.  I  want  to 
put  myself  into  your  hands.  You  know — I  wish  I 

350 


IN    THE    MOUNTAINS 

could  roll  my  little  body  up  small  and  squeeze  it  into 
your  hand  and  grip  youi  fingers  upon  it.  Tight.  I 
want  you  to  hold  me  and  have  me  so.  .  .  .  Everything. 
Everything.  It's  a  pure  joy  of  giving — giving  to  you. 
I  have  never  spoken  of  these  things  to  any  human  being. 
Just  dreamed — and  ran  away  even  from  my  dreams.  It 
is  as  if  my  lips  had  been  sealed  about  them.  And  now 
I  break  the  seals — for  you.  Only  I  wish — I  wish  to-day 
I  was  a  thousand  times,  ten  thousand  times  more  beau- 
tiful." 

Capes  lifted  her  hand  and  kissed  it. 

"  You  are  a  thousand  times  more  beautiful,"  he  said, 
"than  anything  else  could  be.  ...  You  are  you.  You 
are  all  the  beauty  in  the  world.  Beauty  doesn't  mean, 
never  has  meant,  anything — anything  at  all  but  you. 
It  heralded  you,  promised  you.  .  .  ." 


§4 

They  lay  side  by  side  in  a  shallow  nest  of  turf  and 
mosses  among  bowlders  and  stunted  bushes  on  a  high 
rock,  and  watched  the  day  sky  deepen  to  evening  be- 
tween the  vast  precipices  overhead  and  looked  over  the 
tree -tops  down  the  widening  gorge.  A  distant  sug- 
gestion of  chalets  and  a  glimpse  of  the  road  set  them 
talking  for  a  time  of  the  world  they  had  left  behind. 

Capes  spoke  casually  of  their  plans  for  work.  "  It's 
a  flabby,  loose-willed  world  we  have  to  face.  It  won't 
even  know  whether  to  be  scandalized  at  us  or  forgiving. 
It  will  hold  aloof,  a  little  undecided  whether  to  pelt  or 
not—" 


ANN    VERONICA 

'That  depends  whether  we  carry  ourselves  as  though 
we  expected  pelting,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"We  won't." 

"No  fear!" 

"Then,  as  we  succeed,  it  will  begin  to  sidle  back  to 
us.  It  will  do  its  best  to  overlook  things — " 

"  If  we  let  it,  poor  dear." 

"That's  if  we  succeed.  If  we  fail,"  said  Capes, 
"then—" 

"We  aren't  going  to  fail,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

Life  seemed  a  very  brave  and  glorious  enterprise  to 
Ann  Veronica  that  day.  She  was  quivering  with  the 
sense  of  Capes  at  her  side  and  glowing  with  heroic  love ; 
it  seemed  to  her  that  if  they  put  their  hands  jointly 
against  the  Alps  and  pushed  they  would  be  able  to  push 
them  aside.  She  lay  and  nibbled  at  a  sprig  of  dwarf 
rhododendron. 

"Fail!"  she  said. 

§5 

Presently  it  occurred  to  Ann  Veronica  to  ask  about 
the  journey  he  had  planned.  He  had  his  Sections  of 
the  Siegfried  map  folded  in  his  pocket,  and  he  squatted 
up  with  his  legs  crossed  like  an  Indian  idol  while  she  lay 
prone  beside  him  and  followed  every  movement  of  his 
indicatory  finger. 

"  Here,"  he  said,  "  is  this  Blau  See,  and  here  we  rest 
until  to-morrow.  I  think  we  rest  here  until  to-mor- 
row?" 

There  was  a  brief  silence. 

"It  is  a  very  pleasant  place,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
352 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

biting  a  rhododendron  stalk  through,  and  with  that 
faint  shadow  of  a  smile  returning  to  her  lips.  .  .  *.-?•••, 

"And  then?"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"  Then  we  go  on  to  this  place,  the  Oeschinensee.  It's 
a  lake  among  precipices,  and  there  is  a  little  inn  where 
we  can  stay,  and  sit  and  eat  our  dinner  at  a  pleasant 
table  that  looks  upon  the  lake.  For  some  days  we  shall 
be  very  idle  there  among  the  trees  and  rocks.  There  are 
boats  on  the  lake  and  shady  depths  and  wildernesses  of 
pine-wood.  After  a  day  or  so,  perhaps,  we  will  go  on 
one  or  two  little  excursions  and  see  how  good  your  head 
is — a  mild  scramble  or  so ;  and  then  up  to  a  hut  on  a  pass 
just  here,  and  out  upon  the  Blumlis-alp  glacier  that 
spreads  out  so  and  so." 

She  roused  herself  from  some  dream  at  the  word. 
"Glaciers?"  she  said. 

"  Under  the  Wilde  Frau — which  was  named  after 
you." 

He  bent  and  kissed  her  hair  and  paused,  and  then 
forced  his  attention  back  to  the  map.  "One  day,"  he 
resumed,  "we  will  start  off  early  and  come  down  into 
Kandersteg  and  up  these  zigzags  and  here  and  here, 
and  so  past  this  Daubensee  to  a  tiny  inn — it  won't  be 
busy  yet,  though ;  we  may  get  it  all  to  ourselves — on  the 
brim  of  the  steepest  zigzag  you  can  imagine,  thousands 
of  feet  of  zigzag ;  and  you  will  sit  and  eat  lunch  with  me 
and  look  out  across  the  Rhone  Valley  and  over  blue  dis- 
tances beyond  blue  distances  to  the  Matterhorn  and 
Monte  Rosa  and  a  long  regiment  of  sunny,  snowy  moun- 
tains. And  when  we  see  them  we  shall  at  once  want  to 
go  to  them — that's  the  way  with  beautiful  things — and 
down  we  shall  go,  like  flies  down  a  wall,  to  Leukerbad, 

353 


ANN    VERONICA 

and  so  to  Leuk  Station,  here,  and  then  by  train  up  the 
Rhone  Valley  and  this  little  side  valley  to  Stalden;  and 
there,  in  the  cool  of  the  afternoon,  we  shall  start  off  up 
a  gorge,  torrents  and  cliffs  below  us  and  above  us,  to 
sleep  in  a  half-way  inn,  and  go  on  next  day  to  Saas  Fee, 
Saas  of  the  Magic,  Saas  of  the  Pagan  People.  And 
there,  about  Saas,  are  ice  and  snows  again,  and  some- 
times we  will  loiter  among  the  rocks  and  trees  about 
Saas  or  peep  into  Samuel  Butler's  chapels,  and  some- 
times we  will  climb  up  out  of  the  way  of  the  other  peo- 
ple on  to  the  glaciers  and  snow.  And,  for  one  expedi- 
tion at  least,  we  will  go  up  this  desolate  valley  here  to 
Mattmark,  and  so  on  to  Monte  Moro.  There  indeed 
you  see  Monte  Rosa.  Almost  the  best  of  all." 

"Is  it  very  beautiful?" 

"  When  I  saw  it  there  it  was  very  beautiful.  It  was 
wonderful.  It  was  the  crowned  queen  of  mountains 
in  her  robes  of  shining  white.  It  towered  up  high 
above  the  level  of  the  pass,  thousands  of  feet,  still, 
shining,  and  white,  and  below,  thousands  of  feet  below, 
was  a  floor  of  little  woolly  clouds.  And  then  presently 
these  clouds  began  to  wear  thin  and  expose  steep,  deep 
slopes,  going  down  and  down,  with  grass  and  pine-trees, 
down  and  down,  and  at  last,  through  a  great  rent  in 
the  clouds,  bare  roofs,  shining  like  very  minute  pin- 
heads,  and  a  road  like  a  fibre  of  white  silk — Macugnana, 
in  Italy.  That  will  be  a  fine  day — it  will  have  to  be,  when 
first  you  set  eyes  on  Italy.  .  .  .  That's  as  far  as  we  go." 

"Can't  we  go  down  into  Italy?" 

"  No,"  he  said;  " it  won't  run  to  that  now.  We  must 
wave  our  hands  at  the  blue  hills  far  away  there  and  go 
back  to  London  and  work." 

354 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

"  But  Italy—" 

"  Italy's  for  a  good  girl,"  he  said,  and  laid  his  hand 
for  a  moment  on  her  shoulder.  "She  must  look  for- 
ward to  Italy." 

"I  say,"  she  reflected,  "you  are  rather  the  master, 
you  know." 

The  idea  struck  him  as  novel.  "Of  course  I'm 
manager  for  this  expedition,"  he  said,  after  an  interval 
of  self-examination. 

She  slid  her  cheek  down  the  tweed  sleeve  of  his 
coat.  "Nice  sleeve,"  she  said,  and  came  to  his  hand 
and  kissed  it. 

"I  say!"  he  cried.  "Look  here!  Aren't  you  going 
a  little  too  far?  This — this  is  degradation — making 
a  fuss  with  sleeves.  You  mustn't  do  things  like  that." 

"Why  not?" 

"Free  woman — and  equal." 

"I  do  it — of  my  own  free  will,"  said  Ann  Veronica, 
kissing  his  hand  again.  "It's  nothing  to  what  I  will 
do." 

"Oh,  well!"  he  said,  a  little  doubtfully,  "it's  just 
a  phase,"  and  bent  down  and  rested  his  hand  on  her 
shoulder  for  a  moment,  with  his  heart  beating  and 
his  nerves  a-quiver.  Then  as  she  lay  very  still,  with 
her  hands  clinched  and  her  black  hair  tumbled  about 
her  face,  he  came  still  closer  and  softly  kissed  the  nape 
of  her  neck.  .  .  . 

§  6 

Most  of  the  things  that  he  had  planned  they  did.  But 
they  climbed  more  than  he  had  intended  because  Ann 

355 


ANN    VERONICA 

Veronica  proved  rather  a  good  climber,  steady-headed 
and  plucky,  rather  daring,  but  quite  willing  to  be  cautious 
at  his  command. 

One  of  the  things  that  most  surprised  him  in  her 
was  her  capacity  for  blind  obedience.  She  loved  to 
be  told  to  do  things. 

He  knew  the  circle  of  mountains  about  Saas  Fee 
fairly  well;  he  had  been  there  twice  before,  and  it  was 
fine  to  get  away  from  the  straggling  pedestrians  into 
the  high,  lonely  places,  and  sit  and  munch  sandwiches 
and  talk  together  and  do  things  together  that  were 
just  a  little  difficult  and  dangerous.  And  they  could  talk, 
they  found;  and  never  once,  it  seemed,  did  their  meaning 
and  intention  hitch.  They  were  enormously  pleased 
with  one  another ;  they  found  each  other  beyond  measure 
better  than  they  had  expected,  if  only  because  of  the 
want  of  substance  in  mere  expectation.  Their  conver- 
sation degenerated  again  and  again  into  a  strain  of  self- 
congratulation  that  would  have  irked  an  eavesdropper. 

"  You're — I  don't  know,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 
"You're  splendid." 

"It  isn't  that  you're  splendid  or  I,"  said  Capes. 
"But  we  satisfy  one  another.  Heaven  alone  knows 
why.  So  completely!  The  oddest  fitness!  What  is 
it  made  of?  Texture  of  skin  and  texture  of  mind? 
Complexion  and  voice.  I  don't  think  I've  got  illusions, 
nor  you.  ...  If  I  had  never  met  anything  of  you  at  all 
but  a  scrap  of  your  skin  binding  a  book,  Ann  Veronica, 
I  know  I  would  have  kept  that  somewhere  near  to  me. 
.  .  .  All  your  faults  are  just  jolly  modelling  to  make  you 
real  and  solid." 

"The  faults  are  the  best  part  of  it,"  said  Ann  Veronica; 
356 


IN    THE    MOUNTAINS 

"why,  even  our  little  vicious  strains  run  the  same  way. 
Even  our  coarseness." 

"Coarse?"  said  Capes,     "We're  not  coarse." 

"But  if  we  were?"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"I  can  talk  to  you  and  you  to  me  without  a  scrap 
of  effort,"  said  Capes;  "that's  the  essence  of  it.  It's 
made  up  of  things  as  small  as  the  diameter  of  hairs  and 
big  as  life  and  death.  .  .  .  One  always  dreamed  of  this 
and  never  believed  it.  It's  the  rarest  luck,  the  wildest, 
most  impossible  accident.  Most  people,  every  one  I 
know  else,  seem  to  have  mated  with  foreigners  and  to 
talk  uneasily  in  unfamiliar  tongues,  to  be  afraid  of  the 
knowledge  the  other  one  has,  of  the  other  one's  per- 
petual misjudgment  and  misunderstandings. 

"Why  don't  they  wait?"  he  added. 

Ann  Veronica  had  one  of  her  flashes  of  insight. 

"One  doesn't  wait,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

She  expanded  that.  "7  shouldn't  have  waited,"  she 
said.  "  I  might  have  muddled  for  a  time.  But  it's  as  you 
say.  I've  had  the  rarest  luck  and  fallen  on  my  feet." 

"We've  both  fallen  on  our  feet!  We're  the  rarest  of 
mortals !  The  real  thing !  There's  not  a  compromise  nor 
a  sham  nor  a  concession  between  us.  We  aren't  afraid ; 
we  don't  bother.  We  don't  consider  each  other ;  we  needn't. 
That  wrappered  life,  as  you  call  it — we've  burned  the 
confounded  rags!  Danced  out  of  it!  We're  stark!" 

"Stark!"  echoed  Ann  Veronica. 

§  7 

As  they  came  back  from  that  day's  climb — it  was 
up  the  Mittaghorn — they  had  to  cross  a  shining  space 

357 


ANN    VERONICA 

of  wet,  steep  rocks  between  two  grass  slopes  that  needed 
a  little  care.  There  were  a  few  loose,  broken  fragments 
of  rock  to  reckon  with  upon  the  ledges,  and  one  place 
where  hands  did  as  much  work  as  toes.  They  used  the 
rope — not  that  a  rope  was  at  all  necessary,  but  because 
Ann  Veronica's  exalted  state  of  mind  made  the  fact  of 
the  rope  agreeably  symbolical;  and,  anyhow,  it  did 
insure  a  joint  death  in  the  event  of  some  remotely 
possibly  mischance.  Capes  went  first,  finding  footholds 
and,  where  the  drops  in  the  strata-edges  came  like  long, 
awkward  steps,  placing  Ann  Veronica's  feet.  About 
half-way  across  this  interval,  when  everything  seemed 
going  well,  Capes  had  a  shock. 

"Heavens!"  exclaimed  Ann  Veronica,  with  extraor- 
dinary passion.  "My  God!"  and  ceased  to  move. 

Capes  became  rigid  and  adhesive.  Nothing  ensued. 
"All  right?"  he  asked. 

"I'll  have  to  pay  it." 

"Eh?" 

"I've  forgotten  something.     Oh,  cuss  it!" 

"Eh?" 

"He  said  I  would." 

"What?" 

"That's  the  devil  of  it!" 

"Devil  of  what?  .  .  .  You  do  use  vile  language!" 

"Forget  about  it  like  this." 

"Forget  what?" 

"And  I  said  I  wouldn't.  I  said  I'd  do  anything.  I 
said  I'd  make  shirts." 

"Shirts?" 

"  Shirts  at  one-and-something  a  dozen.  Oh,  goodness! 
Bilking!  Ann  Veronica,  you're  a  bilker!" 

358 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

Pause. 

"Will  you  tell  me  what  all  this  is  about?"  said  Capes. 

"It's  about  forty  pounds." 

Capes  waited  patiently. 

"G.  I'm  sorry.  .  .  .  But  you've  got  to  lend  me  forty 
pounds." 

"It's  some  sort  of  delirium,"  said  Capes.  "The  rare- 
fied air?  I  thought  you  had  a  better  head." 

"No!  I'll  explain  lower.  It's  all  right.  Let's  go 
on  climbing  now.  It's  a  thing  I've  unaccountably 
overlooked.  All  right  really.  It  can  wait  a  bit  longer. 
I  borrowed  forty  pounds  from  Mr.  Ramage.  Thank 
goodness  you'll  understand.  That's  why  I  chucked 
Manning. . . .  All  right,  I'm  coming.  But  all  this  business 
has  driven  it  clean  out  of  my  head.  .  .  .  That's  why  he 
was  so  annoyed,  you  know." 

"Who  was  annoyed?" 

"Mr.  Ramage — about  the  forty  pounds."  She  took 
a  step.  "My  dear,"  she  added,  by  way  of  afterthought, 
"you  do  obliterate  things!" 

§8 

They  found  themselves  next  day  talking  love  to  one 
another  high  up  on  some  rocks  above  a  steep  bank  of 
snow  that  overhung  a  precipice  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
Fee  glacier.  By  this  time  Capes'  hair  had  bleached 
nearly  white,  and  his  skin  had  become  a  skin  of  red 
copper  shot  with  gold.  They  were  now  both  in  a  state 
of  unprecedented  physical  fitness.  And  such  skirts  as 
Ann  Veronica  had  had  when  she  entered  the  valley  of 
Saas  were  s-afely  packed  away  in  the  hotel,  and  she  wore 

359 


ANN   VERONICA 

a  leather  belt  and  loose  knickerbockers  and  puttees — a 
costume  that  suited  the  fine,  long  lines  of  her  limbs  far 
better  than  any  feminine  walking-dress  could  do.  Her 
complexion  had  resisted  the  snow-glare  wonderfully; 
her  skin  had  only  deepened  its  natural  warmth  a  little 
under  the  Alpine  sun.  She  had  pushed  aside  her  azure 
veil,  taken  off  her  snow-glasses,  and  sat  smiling  under 
her  hand  at  the  shining  glories — the  lit  cornices,  the  blue 
shadows,  the  softly  rounded,  enormous  snow  masses,  the 
deep  places  full  of  quivering  luminosity — of  the  Tasch- 
horn  and  Dom.  The  sky  was  cloudless,  effulgent  blue. 

Capes  sat  watching  and  admiring  her,  and  then  he  fell 
praising  the  day  and  fortune  and  their  love  for  each  other. 

"Here  we  are,"  he  said,  "shining  through  each  other 
like  light  through  a  stained-glass  window.  With  this 
air  in  our  blood,  this  sunlight  soaking  us.  ...  Life  is  so 
good.  Can  it  ever  be  so  good  again?" 

Ann  Veronica  put  out  a  firm  hand  and  squeezed  his 
arm.  "  It's  very  good,"  she  said.  "  It's  glorious  good!" 

"Suppose  now — look  at  this  long  snow-slope  and  then 
that  blue  deep  beyond — do  you  see  that  round  pool  of 
color  in  the  ice — a  thousand  feet  or  more  below  ?  Yes  ? 
Well,  think — we've  got  to  go  but  ten  steps  and  lie  down 
and  put  our  arms  about  each  other.  See?  Down  we 
should  rush  in  a  foam — in  a  cloud  of  snow — to  flight  and 
a  dream.  All  the  rest  of  our  lives  would  be  together 
then,  Ann  Veronica.  Every  moment.  And  no  ill-chances." 

"If  you  tempt  me  too  much,"  she  said,  after  a  silence, 
"I  shall  do  it.  I  need  only  just  jump  up  and  throw 
myself  upon  you.  I'm  a  desperate  young  woman. 
And  then  as  we  went  down  you'd  try  to  explain.  And 
that  would  spoil  it.  ...  You  know  you  don't  mean  it." 

360 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

"No,  I  don't.  But  I  liked  to  say  it." 
"Rather!  But  I  wonder  why  you  don't  mean  it?" 
"Because,  I  suppose,  the  other  thing  is  better.  What 
other  reason  could  there  be?  It's  more  complex,  but 
it's  better.  This,  this  glissade,  would  be  damned 
scoundrelism.  You  know  that,  and  I  know  that,  though 
we  might  be  put  to  it  to  find  a  reason  why.  It  would 
be  swindling.  Drawing  the  pay  of  life  and  then  not 
living.  And  besides — •  We're  going  to  live,  Ann 
Veronica!  Oh,  the  things  we'll  do,  the  life  we'll  lead/ 
There'll  be  trouble  in  it  at  times — you  and  I  aren't  going 
to  run  without  friction.  But  we've  got  the  brains  to  get 
over  that,  and  tongues  in  our  heads  to  talk  to  each 
other.  We  sha'n't  hang  up  on  any  misunderstanding. 
Not  us.  And  we're  going  to  fight  that  old  world  down 
there.  That  old  world  that  had  shoved  up  that  silly 
old  hotel,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  ...  If  we  don't  live  it 
will  think  we  are  afraid  of  it.  ...  Die,  indeed!  We're 
going  to  do  work;  we're  going  to  unfold  about  each 
other;  we're  going  to  have  children." 
"Girls!"  cried  Ann  Veronica. 
"Boys!"  said  Capes. 

"Both!"  said  Ann  Veronica.     "Lots  of  'em!" 
Capes  chuckled.     "You  delicate  female!" 
"Who  cares,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  "seeing  it's  you? 
Warm,  soft  little  wonders!     Of  course  I  want  them." 


§9 

"All  sorts  of  things  we're  going  to  do,"  said  Capes; 
"  all  sorts  of  times  we're  going  to  have.     Sooner  or  later 


ANN    VERONICA 

we'll  certainly  do  something  to  clean  those  prisons  you 
told  me  about — limewash  the  underside  of  life.  You 
and  I.  We  can  love  on  a  snow  cornice,  we  can  love  over 
a  pail  of  whitewash.  Love  anywhere.  Anywhere! 
Moonlight  and  music — pleasing,  you  know,  but  quite  un- 
necessary. We  met  dissecting  dogfish.  ...  Do  you  re- 
member your  first  day  with  me?  .  .  .  Do  you  indeed  re- 
member? The  smell  of  decay  and  cheap  methylated 
spirit!  .  .  .  My  dear!  we've  had  so  many  moments!  I  used 
to  go  over  the  times  we'd  had  together,  the  things  we'd 
said — like  a  rosary  of  beads.  But  now  it's  beads  by  the 
cask — like  the  hold  of  a  West  African  trader.  It  feels 
like  too  much  gold-dust  clutched  in  one's  hand.  One 
doesn't  want  to  lose  a  grain.  And  one  must — some  of 
it  must  slip  through  one's  fingers." 

"I  don't  care  if  it  does,"  said  Ann  Veronica.  "I 
don't  care  a  rap  for  remembering.  I  care  for  you.  This 
moment  couldn't  be  better  until  the  next  moment  comes. 
That's  how  it  takes  me.  Why  should  we  hoard  ?  We 
aren't  going  out  presently,  like  Japanese  lanterns  in  a 
gale.  It's  the  poor  dears  who  do,  who  know  they  will, 
know  they  can't  keep  it  up,  who  need  to  clutch  at  way- 
side flowers.  And  put  'em  in  little  books  for  remem- 
brance. Flattened  flowers  aren't  for  the  likes  of  us. 
Moments,  indeed!  We  like  each  other  fresh  and  fresh. 
It  isn't  illusions — for  us.  We  two  just  love  each  other 
— the  real,  identical  other — all  the  time." 

"The  real,  identical  other,"  said  Capes,  and  took  and 
bit  the  tip  of  her  little  finger. 

"There's  no  delusions,  so  far  as  I  know,"  said  Ann 
Veronica. 

"I  don't  believe  there  is  one.     If  there  is,  it's  a  mere 

362 


IN   THE   MOUNTAINS 

wrapping — there's  better  underneath.  It's  only  as  if 
I'd  begun  to  know  you  the  day  before  yesterday  or  there- 
abouts. You  keep  on  coming  truer,  after  you  have 
seemed  to  come  altogether  true.  You.  .  .  .  brickl" 


§  10 

"To  think,"  he  cried,  "you  are  ten  years  younger 
than  I!  ...  There  are  times  when  you  make  me  feel  a 
little  thing  at  your  feet — a  young,  silly,  protected  thing. 
Do  you  know,  Ann  Veronica,  it  is  all  a  lie  about  your 
birth  certificate;  a  forgery — and  fooling  at  that.  You 
are  one  of  the  Immortals.  Immortal  I  You  were  in 
the  beginning,  and  all  the  men  in  the  world  who  have 
known  what  love  is  have  worshipped  at  your  feet.  You 
have  converted  me  to — Lester  Ward!  You  are  my  dear 
friend,  you  are  a  slip  of  a  girl,  but  there  are  moments 
when  my  head  has  been  on  your  breast,  when  your  heart 
has  been  beating  close  to  my  ears,  when  I  have  known 
you  for  the  goddess,  when  I  have  wished  myself  your 
slave,  when  I  have  wished  that  you  could  kill  me  for  the 
joy  of  being  killed  by  you.  You  are  the  High  Priestess 
of  Life.  .  .  ." 

"Your  priestess,"  whispered  Ann  Veronica,  softly. 
"  A  silly  little  priestess  who  knew  nothing  of  life  at  all 
until  she  came  to  you." 

§  ii 

They  sat  for  a  time  without  speaking  a  word,  in  an 
enormous  shining  globe  of  mutual  satisfaction. 
34  363 


ANN   VERONICA 

"Well,"  said  Capes,  at  length,  "we've  to  go  down, 
Ann  Veronica.  Life  waits  for  us." 

He  stood  up  and  waited  for  her  to  move. 

"Gods!"  cried  Ann  Veronica,  and  kept  him  standing. 
"And  to  think  that  it's  not  a  full  year  ago  since  I  was 
a  black-hearted  rebel  school-girl,  distressed,  puzzled, 
perplexed,  not  understanding  that  this  great  force  of 
love  was  bursting  its  way  through  me !  All  those  name- 
less discontents — they  were  no  more  than  love's  birth- 
pangs.  I  felt — I  felt  living  in  a  masked  world.  I  felt 
as  though  I  had  bandaged  eyes.  I  felt — wrapped  in 
thick  cobwebs.  They  blinded  me.  They  got  in  my 
mouth.  And  now —  Dear!  Dear!  The  day  spring 
from  on  high  hath  visited  me.  I  love.  I  am  loved.  I 
want  to  shout!  I  want  to  sing!  I  am  glad!  I  am 
glad  to  be  alive  because  you  are  alive !  I  am  glad  to  be 
a  woman  because  you  are  a  man!  I  am  glad!  I  am 
glad!  I  am  glad!  I  thank  God  for  life  and  you.  I 
thank  God  for  His  sunlight  on  your  face.  I  thank  God 
for  the  beauty  you  love  and  the  faults  you  love.  I 
thank  God  for  the  very  skin  that  is  peeling  from  your 
nose,  for  all  things  great  and  small  that  make  us  what 
we  are.  This  is  grace  I  am  saying!  Oh!  my  dear! 
all  the  joy  and  weeping  of  life  are  mixed  in  me  now  and 
all  the  gratitude.  Never  a  new-born  dragon-fly  that 
spread  its  wings  in  the  morning  has  felt  as  glad  as  I!" 


CHAPTER   THE    SEVENTEENTH 

IN    PERSPECTIVE 


A3OUT  four  years  and  a  quarter  later — to  be  exact, 
it  was  four  years  and  four  months — Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Capes  stood  side  by  side  upon  an  old  Persian  carpet 
that  did  duty  as  a  hearthrug  in  the  dining-room  of  their 
flat  and  surveyed  a  shining  dinner-table  set  for  four 
people,  lit  by  skilfully-shaded  electric  lights,  brightened 
by  frequent  gleams  of  silver,  and  carefully  and  simply 
adorned  with  sweet-pea  blossom.  Capes  had  altered 
scarcely  at  all  during  the  interval,  except  for  a  new 
quality  of  smartness  in  the  cut  of  his  clothes,  but  Ann 
Veronica  was  nearly  half  an  inch  taller;  her  face  was  at 
once  stronger  and  softer,  her  neck  firmer  and  rounder, 
and  her  carriage  definitely  more  womanly  than  it  had 
been  in  the  days  of  her  rebellion.  She  was  a  woman 
now  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers ;  she  had  said  good-bye  to 
her  girlhood  in  the  old  garden  four  years  and  a  quarter 
ago.  She  was  dressed  in  a  simple  evening  gown  of  soft 
creamy  silk,  with  a  yoke  of  dark  old  embroidery  that  en- 
hanced the  gentle  gravity  of  her  style,  and  her  black 
hair  flowed  off  her  open  forehead  to  pass  under  the  con- 
trol of  a  simple  ribbon  of  silver.  A  silver  necklace 

365 


ANN    VERONICA 

enhanced  the  dusky  beauty  of  her  neck.  Both  husband 
and  wife  affected  an  unnatural  ease  of  manner  for  the 
benefit  of  the  efficient  parlor-maid,  who  was  putting  the 
finishing  touches  to  the  sideboard  arrangements. 

"It  looks  all  right,"  said  Capes. 

"I  think  everything's  right,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  with 
the  roaming  eye  of  a  capable  but  riot  devoted  house- 
mistress. 

"I  wonder  if  they  will  seem  altered,"  she  remarked 
for  the  third  time. 

"There  I  can't  help,"  said  Capes. 

He  walked  through  a  wide  open  archway,  curtained 
with  deep-blue  curtains,  into  the  apartment  that  served 
as  a  reception-room.  Ann  Veronica,  after  a  last  survey 
of  the  dinner  appointments,  followed  him,  rustling, 
came  to  his  side  by  the  high  brass  fender,  and  touched 
two  or  three  ornaments  on  the  mantel  above  the  cheerful 
fireplace. 

"  It's  still  a  marvel  to  me  that  we  are  to  be  forgiven," 
she  said,  turning. 

"  My  charm  of  manner,  I  suppose.  But,  indeed,  he's 
very  human." 

"Did  you  tell  him  of  the  registry  office?" 

"No — o — certainly  not  so  emphatically  as  I  did 
about  the  play." 

"It  was  an  inspiration — your  speaking  to  him?" 

"I  felt  impudent.  I  believe  I  am  getting  impudent. 
I  had  not  been  near  the  Royal  Society  since — since 
you  disgraced  me.  What's  that?" 

They  both  stood  listening.  It  was  not  the  arrival  of 
the  guests,  but  merely  the  maid  moving  about  in  the 
hall. 

366 


IN    PERSPECTIVE 

"Wonderful  man!"  said  Ann  Veronica,  reassured, 
and  stroking  his  cheek  with  her  finger. 

Capes  made  a  quick  movement  as  if  to  bite  that  ag- 
gressive digit,  but  it  withdrew  to  Ann  Veronica's  side. 

"I  was  really  interested  in  his  stuff.  I  was  talking 
to  him  before  I  saw  his  name  on  the  card  beside  the 
row  of  microscopes.  Then,  naturally,  I  went  on  talk- 
ing. He — he  has  rather  a  poor  opinion  of  his  con- 
temporaries. Of  course,  he  had  no  idea  who  I  was." 

"  But  how  did  you  tell  him  ?  You've  never  told  me. 
Wasn't  it — a  little  bit  of  a  scene?" 

"Oh!  let  me  see.  I  said  I  hadn't  been  at  the  Royal 
Society  soiree  for  four  years,  and  got  him  to  tell  me 
about  some  of  the  fresh  Mendelian  work.  He  loves 
the  Mendelians  because  he  hates  all  the  big  names  of 
the  eighties  and  nineties.  Then  I  think  I  remarked 
that  science  was  disgracefully  under-endowed,  and  con- 
fessed I'd  had  to  take  to  more  profitable  courses.  'The 
fact  of  it  is,'  I  said,  'I'm  the  new  playwright,  Thomas 
More.  Perhaps  you've  heard — ?'  Well,  you  know, 
he  had." 

"Fame!" 

"Isn't  it?  'I've  not  seen  your  play,  Mr.  More,'  he 
said,  'but  I'm  told  it's  the  most  amusing  thing  in  Lon- 
don at  the  present  time.  A  friend  of  mine,  Ogilvy' — I 
suppose  that's  Ogilvy  &  Ogilvy,  who  do  so  many 
divorces,  Vee? — 'was  speaking  very  highly  of  it — very 
highly!'"  He  smiled  into  her  eyes. 

"You  are  developing  far  too  retentive  a  memory  for 
praises,"  said  Ann  Veronica. 

"I'm  still  new  to  them.  But  after  that  it  was  easy. 
I  told  him  instantly  and  shamelessly  that  the  play  was 

367 


ANN    VERONICA 

going  to  be  worth  ten  thousand  pounds.  He  agreed  it 
was  disgraceful.  Then  I  assumed  a  rather  portentous 
manner  to  prepare  him." 

"How?     Show  me." 

"I  can't  be  portentous,  dear,  when  you're  about. 
It's  my  other  side  of  the  moon.  But  I  was  portentous, 
I  can  assure  you.  'My  name's  not  More,  Mr.  Stanley,' 
I  said.  'That's  my  pet  name."1 

"Yes?" 

"  I  think — yes,  I  went  on  in  a  pleasing  blend  of  the 
casual  and  sotto  voce,  'The  fact  of  it  is,  sir,  I  happen  to 
be  your  son-in-law,  Capes.  I  do  wish  you  could  come 
and  dine  with  us  some  evening.  It  would  make  my 
wife  very  happy."1 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"What  does  any  one  say  to  an  invitation  to  dinner 
point-blank?  One  tries  to  collect  one's  wits.  'She  is 
constantly  thinking  of  you,'  I  said." 

"And  he  accepted  meekly?" 

"  Practically.  What  else  could  he  do  ?  You  can't 
kick  up  a  scene  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  in  the  face 
of  such  conflicting  values  as  he  had  before  him.  With 
me  behaving  as  if  everything  was  infinitely  matter-of- 
fact,  what  could  he  do?  And  just  then  Heaven  sent 
old  Manningtree — I  didn't  tell  you  before  of  the  fortunate 
intervention  of  Manningtree,  did  I?  He  was  looking 
quite  infernally  distinguished,  with  a  wide  crimson 
ribbon  across  him — what  is  a  wide  crimson  ribbon? 
Some  sort  of  knight,  I  suppose.  He  is  a  knight.  '  Well, 
young  man/  he  said,  'we  haven't  seen  you  lately/  and 
something  about  'Bateson  &  Co.' — he's  frightfully  anti- 
Mendelian — having  it  all  their  own  way.  So  I  in- 

368 


IN    PERSPECTIVE 

troduced  him  to  my  father-in-law  like  a  shot.  I  think 
that  was  decision.  Yes,  it  was  Manningtree  really 
secured  your  father.  He — " 

"Here   they   are!"    said   Ann   Veronica   as   the   bell 
sounded. 


§  2 

They  received  the  guests  in  their  pretty  little  hall 
with  genuine  effusion.  Miss  Stanley  threw  aside  a 
black  cloak  to  reveal  a  discreet  and  dignified  arrange- 
ment of  brown  silk,  and  then  embraced  Ann  Veronica 
with  warmth.  "So  very  clear  and  cold,"  she  said. 
"  I  feared  we  might  have  a  fog,"  The  housemaid's 
presence  acted  as  a  useful  restraint.  Ann  Veronica 
passed  from  her  aunt  to  her  father,  and  put  her  arms 
about  him  and  kissed  his  cheek.  "Dear  old  daddy!" 
she  said,  and  was  amazed  to  find  herself  shedding  tears. 
She  veiled  her  emotion  by  taking  off  his  overcoat. 
"And  this  is  Mr.  Capes?"  she  heard  her  aunt  saying. 

All  four  people  moved  a  little  nervously  into  the 
drawing-room,  maintaining  a  sort  of  fluttered  amiability 
of  sound  and  movement.  Mr.  Stanley  professed  a  great 
solicitude  to  warm  his  hands.  "Quite  unusually  cold 
for  the  time  of  year,"  he  said.  "  Everything  very  nice, 
I  am  sure,"  Miss  Stanley  murmured  to  Capes  as  he 
steered  her  to  a  place  upon  the  little  sofa  before  the  fire. 
Also  she  made  little  pussy-like  sounds  of  a  reassuring 
nature. 

"  And  let's  have  a  look  at  you,  Vee! "  said  Mr.  Stanley, 
standing  up  with  a  sudden  geniality  and  rubbing  his 
hands  together. 

369 


ANN    VERONICA 

Ann  Veronica,  who  knew  her  dress  became  her, 
dropped  a  curtsy  to  her  father's  regard. 

Happily  they  had  no  one  else  to  wait  for,  and  it 
heartened  her  mightily  to  think  that  she  had  ordered 
the  promptest  possible  service  of  the  dinner.  Capes 
stood  beside  Miss  Stanley,  who  was  beaming  unnaturally, 
and  Mr.  Stanley,  in  his  effort  to  seem  at  ease,  took  entire 
possession  of  the  hearthrug. 

"  You  found  the  flat  easily  ? "  said  Capes  in  the  pause. 
"  The  numbers  are  a  little  difficult  to  see  in  the  archway. 
They  ought  to  put  a  lamp." 

Her  father  declared  there  had  been  no  difficulty. 

"  Dinner  is  served,  m'm,"  said  the  efficient  parlor-maid 
in  the  archway,  and  the  worst  was  over. 

"Come,  daddy,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  following  her 
husband  and  Miss  Stanley;  and  in  the  fulness  of  her 
heart  she  gave  a  friendly  squeeze  to  the  parental  arm. 

"Excellent  fellow!"  he  answered  a  little  irrelevantly. 
"I  didn't  understand,  Vee." 

"Quite  charming  apartments,"  Miss  Stanley  admired; 
"charming!  Everything  is  so  pretty  and  convenient." 

The  dinner  was  admirable  as  a  dinner;  nothing  went 
wrong,  from  the  golden  and  excellent  clear  soup  to  the 
delightful  iced  marrons  and  cream;  and  Miss  Stanley's 
praises  died  away  to  an  appreciative  acquiescence. 
A  brisk  talk  sprang  up  between  Capes  and  Mr.  Stanley, 
to  which  the  two  ladies  subordinated  themselves  in- 
telligently. The  burning  topic  of  the  Mendelian  con- 
troversy was  approached  on  one  or  two  occasions,  but 
avoided  dexterously;  and  they  talked  chiefly  of  letters 
and  art  and  the  censorship  of  the  English  stage.  Mr. 
Stanley  was  inclined  to  think  the  censorship  should  be 

370 


IN   PERSPECTIVE 

extended  to  the  supply  of  what  he  styled  latter-day 
fiction;  good  wholesome  stories  were  being  ousted,  he 
said,  by  <f  vicious,  corrupting  stuff"  that  "left  a  bad 
taste  in  the  mouth."  He  declared  that  no  book  could 
be  satisfactory  that  left  a  bad  taste  in  the  mouth,  how- 
ever much  it  seized  and  interested  the  reader  at  the 
time.  He  did  not  like  it,  he  said,  with  a  significant 
look,  to  be  reminded  of  either  his  books  or  his  dinners 
after  he  had  done  with  them.  Capes  agreed  with  the 
utmost  cordiality. 

"Life  is  upsetting  enough,  without  the  novels  taking 
a  share,"  said  Mr.  Stanley. 

For  a  time  Ann  Veronica's  attention  was  diverted 
by  her  aunt's  interest  in  the  salted  almonds. 

"Quite  particularly  nice,"  said  her  aunt.  "Excep- 
tionally so." 

When  Ann  Veronica  could  attend  again  she  found 
the  men  were  discussing  the  ethics  of  the  depreciation 
of  house  property  through  the  increasing  tumult  of 
traffic  in  the  West  End,  and  agreeing  with  each  other 
to  a  devastating  extent.  It  came  into  her  head  with 
real  emotional  force  that  this  must  be  some  particularly 
fantastic  sort  of  dream.  It  seemed  to  her  that  her 
father  was  in  some  inexplicable  way  meaner-looking 
than  she  had  supposed,  and  yet  also,  as  unaccountably, 
appealing.  His  tie  had  demanded  a  struggle;  he  ought 
to  have  taken  a  clean  one  after  his  first  failure.  Why 
was  she  noting  things  like  this?  Capes  seemed  self- 
possessed  and  elaborately  genial  and  commonplace, 
but  she  knew  him  to  be  nervous  by  a  little  occasional 
clumsiness,  by  the  faintest  shadow  of  vulgarity  in  the 
urgency  of  his  hospitality.  She  wished  he  could  smoke 


ANN    VERONICA 

and  dull  his  nerves  a  little.  A  gust  of  irrational  im- 
patience blew  through  her  being.  Well,  they'd  got  to 
the  pheasants,  and  in  a  little  while  he  would  smoke. 
What  was  it  she  had  expected  ?  Surely  her  moods  were 
getting  a  little  out  of  hand. 

She  wished  her  father  and  aunt  would  not  enjoy 
their  dinner  with  such  quiet  determination.  Her 
father  and  her  husband,  who  had  both  been  a  little 
pale  at  their  first  encounter,  were  growing  now  just 
faintly  flushed.  It  was  a  pity  people  had  to  eat 
food. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  her  father,  "  I  have  read  at  least 
half  the  novels  that  have  been  at  all  successful  during 
the  last  twenty  years.  Three  a  week  is  my  allowance, 
and,  if  I  get  short  ones,  four.  I  change  them  in  the 
morning  at  Cannon  Street,  and  take  my  book  as  I  come 
down." 

It  occurred  to  her  that  she  had  never  seen  her  father 
dining  out  before,  never  watched  him  critically  as  an 
equal.  To  Capes  he  was  almost  deferential,  and  she 
had  never  seen  him  deferential  in  the  old  time,  never. 
The  dinner  was  stranger  than  she  had  ever  anticipated. 
It  was  as  if  she  had  grown  right  past  her  father  into 
something  older  and  of  infinitely  wider  outlook,  as  if 
he  had  always  been  unsuspectedly  a  flattened  figure, 
and  now  she  had  discovered  him  from  the  other  side. 

It  was  a  great  relief  to  arrive  at  last  at  that  pause 
when  she  could  say  to  her  aunt,  "Now,  dear?"  and  rise 
and  hold  back  the  curtain  through  the  archway.  Capes 
and  her  father  stood  up,  and  her  father  made  a  belated 
movement  toward  the  curtain.  She  realized  that  he 
was  the  sort  of  man  one  does  not  think  much  about 

372 


IN    PERSPECTIVE 

at  dinners.  And  Capes  was  thinking  that  his  wife  was 
a  supremely  beautiful  woman.  He  reached  a  silver 
cigar  and  cigarette  box  from  the  sideboard  and  put  it 
before  his  father-in-law,  and  for  a  time  the  preliminaries 
of  smoking  occupied  them  both.  Then  Capes  flittered 
to  the  hearthrug  and  poked  the  fire,  stood  up,  and  turned 
about.  "  Ann  Veronica  is  looking  very  well,  don't  you 
think?"  he  said,  a  little  awkwardly. 

"Very,"  said  Mr.  Stanley.  "Very,"  and  cracked  a 
walnut  appreciatively. 

"Life — things —  I  don't  think  her  prospects  now — 
Hopeful  outlook." 

"You  were  in  a  difficult  position,"  Mr.  Stanley  pro- 
nounced, and  seemed  to  hesitate  whether  he  had  not 
gone  too  far.  He  looked  at  his  port  wine  as  though 
that  tawny  ruby  contained  the  solution  of  the  matter. 
"All's  well  that  ends  well,"  he  said;  "and  the  less  one 
says  about  things  the  better." 

"Of  course,"  said  Capes,  and  threw  a  newly  lit  cigar 
into  the  ftre  through  sheer  nervousness.  "Have  some 
more  port  wine,  sir?" 

"It's  a  very  sound  wine,"  said  Mr.  Stanley,  con- 
senting with  dignity. 

"Ann  Veronica  has  never  looked  quite  so  well,  I  think," 
said  Capes,  clinging,  because  of  a  preconceived  plan,  to 
the  suppressed  topic. 


§3 

At  last  the  evening  was  over,  and  Capes  and  his  wife 
had  gone  down  to  see  Mr.  Stanley  and  his  sister  into  a 

373 


ANN    VERONICA 

taxicab,  and  had  waved  an  amiable  farewell  from  the 
pavement  steps. 

"Great  dears!"  said  Capes,  as  the  vehicle  passed  out 
of  sight. 

"  Yes,  aren't  they  ?"  said  Ann  Veronica,  after  a  thought- 
ful pause.  And  then,  "They  seem  changed." 

"Come  in  out  of  the  cold,"  said  Capes,  and  took  her 
arm. 

"They  seem  smaller,  you  know,  even  physically 
smaller,"  she  said. 

"You've  grown  out  of  them.  .  .  .  Your  aunt  liked  the 
pheasant." 

"She  liked  everything.  Did  you  hear  us  through  the 
archway,  talking  cookery?" 

They  went  up  by  the  lift  in  silence. 

"It's  odd,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  re-entering  the  flat. 

"What's  odd?" 

"Oh,  everything!" 

She  shivered,  and  went  to  the  fire  and  poked  it.  Capes 
sat  down  in  the  arm-chair  beside  her. 

"Life's  so  queer,"  she  said,  kneeling  and  looking  into 
the  flames.  "I  wonder — I  wonder  if  we  shall  ever  get 
like  that." 

She  turned  a  firelit  face  to  her  husband.  "Did  you 
tell  him?" 

Capes  smiled  faintly.     "Yes." 

"How?" 

"Well— a  little  clumsily." 

"But  how?" 

"I  poured  him  out  some  port  wine,  and  I  said — let 
me  see — oh,  'You  are  going  to  be  a  grandfather!' " 

"Yes.     Was  he  pleased?" 
374 


IN   PERSPECTIVE 

"  Calmly !     He  said — you  won't  mind  my  telling  you  ?" 

"Not  a  bit." 

"He  said,  'Poor  Alice  has  got  no  end!"* 

"Alice's  are  different,"  said  Ann  Veronica,  after  an 
interval.  "Quite  different.  She  didn't  choose  hei 
man.  .  .  .  Well,  I  told  aunt.  .  .  .  Husband  of  mine,  I  think 
we  have  rather  overrated  the  emotional  capacity  of 
those — those  dears." 

"What  did  your  aunt  say?" 

"She  didn't  even  kiss  me.  She  said" — Ann  Veronica 
shivered  again — "'I  hope  it  won't  make  you  uncom- 
fortable, my  dear' — like  that — 'and  whatever  you  do, 
do  be  careful  of  your  hair!'  I  think — I  judge  from  her 
manner — that  she  thought  it  was  just  a  little  indelicate 
of  us — considering  everything;  but  she  tried  to  be  prac- 
tical and  sympathetic  and  live  down  to  our  standards." 

Capes  looked  at  his  wife's  unsmiling  face. 

"Your  father,"  he  said,  "remarked  that  all's  well  that 
ends  well,  and  that  he  was  disposed  to  let  bygones  be 
bygones.  He  then  spoke  with  a  certain  fatherly 
kindliness  of  the  past.  ..." 

"And  my  heart  has  ached  for  him!" 

"Oh,  no  doubt  it  cut  him  at  the  time.  It  must  have 
cut  him." 

"We  might  even  have — given  it  up  for  them!" 

"I  wonder  if  we  could." 

"I  suppose  all  is  well  that  ends  well.  Somehow  to- 
night— I  don't  know." 

"I  suppose  so.  I'm  glad  the  old  sore  is  assuaged. 
Very  glad.  But  if  we  had  gone  under — !" 

They  regarded  one  another  silently,  and  Ann  Veronica 
had  one  of  her  penetrating  flashes. 

375 


ANN    VERONICA 

"We  are  not  the  sort  that  goes  under,"  said  Ann 
Veronica,  holding  her  hands  so  that  the  red  reflections 
vanished  from  her  eyes.  "We  settled  long  ago — we're 
hard  stuff.  We're  hard  stuff!" 

Then  she  went  on:  "To  think  that  is  my  father!  Oh, 
my  dear!  He  stood  over  me  like  a  cliff;  the  thought  of 
him  nearly  turned  me  aside  from  everything  we  have 
done.  He  was  the  social  order;  he  was  law  and  wisdom. 
And  they  come  here,  and  they  look  at  our  furniture  to 
see  if  it  is  good;  and  they  are  not  glad,  it  does  not  stir 
them,  that  at  last,  at  last  we  can  dare  to  have  children." 

She  dropped  back  into  a  crouching  attitude  and  began 
to  weep.  "  Oh,  my  dear!"  she  cried,  and  suddenly  flung 
herself,  kneeling,  into  her  husband's  arms. 

"Do  you  remember  the  mountains?  Do  you  remem- 
ber how  we  loved  one  another  ?  How  intensely  we  loved 
one  another !  Do  you  remember  the  light  on  things  and 
the  glory  of  things?  I'm  greedy,  I'm  greedy!  I  want 
children  like  the  mountains  and  life  like  the  sky.  Oh! 
and  love — love!  We've  had  so  splendid  a  time,  and 
fought  our  fight  and  won.  And  it's  like  the  petals  fall- 
ing from  a  flower.  Oh,  I've  loved  love,  dear!  I've 
loved  love  and  you,  and  the  glory  of  you;  and  the  great 
time  is  over,  and  I  have  to  go  carefully  and  bear  children, 
and — take  care  of  my  hair — and  when  I  am  done  with 
that  I  shall  be  an  old  woman.  The  petals  have  fallen 
— the  red  petals  we  loved  so.  We're  hedged  about  with 
discretions — and  all  this  furniture — and  successes!  We 
are  successful  at  last!  Successful!  But  the  mountains, 
dear!  We  won't  forget  the  mountains,  dear,  ever.  That 
shining  slope  of  snow,  and  how  we  talked  of  death !  We 
might  have  died!  Even  when  we  are  old,  when  we  are 

376 


IN   PERSPECTIVE 

rich  as  we  may  be,  we  won't  forget  the  time  when  we 
cared  nothing  for  anything  but  the  joy  of  one  another, 
when  we  risked  everything  for  one  another,  when  all  the 
wrappings  and  coverings  seemed  to  have  fallen  from  life 
and  left  it  light  and  fire.  Stark  and  stark!  Do  you 
remember  it  all?  ...  Say  you  will  never  forget!  That 
these  common  things  and  secondary  things  sha'n't  over- 
whelm us.  These  petals!  I've  been  wanting  to  cry  all 
the  evening,  cry  here  on  your  shoulder,  for  my  petals. 
Petals! .  .  .  Silly  woman! ...  I've  never  had  these  crying 
fits  before.  .  .  ." 

"Blood  of  my  heart!"  whispered  Capes,  holding  her 
close  to  him.     "I  know.     I  understand." 


THE    END 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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